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THE SHOT 


BY 

SIBYL CREED . 



NEW YORK 

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


?Z3 

.Gaui* 

Sk, 

Cr|v^ % 


COPYRIGHT, 1924, 

By GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 




THE SHOT 
—c— 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA 

SEP 27 *24 

© Cl A 8 0 7 0 S 0 ' 

\ r y r 




THE SHOT 




■' * 




THE SHOT 

Chapter I 


M ISS BENEDICTA WATKYN lived 
with her widowed brother-in-law, Fran¬ 
cis Busshe, at Fir Bank, Daunt. Little old 
Daunt is a Thames Valley town. She kept 
house for him, shared expenses and looked after 
his only child. A daughter. Emily. 

At half-past nine on a dull morning in the 
mid-April of 1920 Miss Watkyn sat down at 
the writing-table in one of the bow windows of 
the Fir Bank drawing-room and started a long 
letter to a married cousin in New Zealand. 
Miss Watkyn always spoke of herself (with 
reason) as an excellent correspondent. But 
this letter she was never to finish; and when, 
having left it with still a page to fill, she sud¬ 
denly, in the evening of the same day, caught 
sight of the closely-covered sheet in the open 
blotting-book, she started back. Years, not 
hours, seemed to divide her from the letter. 


7 


8 


The Shot 

Had something overwhelming happened in 
the interval ? Yes. 

In order to begin at the beginning we had 
better, while Miss Watkyn’s pen yet runs, 
look over her shoulder. 

Dear Meta, 

I have big news. In a fortnight Emmy 
will be married. She has been engaged three 
months. The young man is the son of a cousin 
of her father’s, so a second cousin. Still, 
they only met lately. His name is Julian Dem- 
mean, he’s twenty-seven (Emmy’s nineteen), 
charming, absolutely devoted, and quite well 
off. He has taken a house nearby, wants 
headquarters near London, which is lucky, as 
Emmy could never have borne to go far from 
her father, and he is rooted at Fir Bank. 

I give Emmy some of my old lace—a hand¬ 
some present, my dear—and her adopted un¬ 
cle, Mr. Grant, is having emeralds of his 
mother’s re-set for her. It’s the house next 
his Julian has taken on a long lease—Como— 
Mr. Grant is the owner both of Como and 
his own house, Rufus Lodge. He wouldn’t 


The Shot 9 

have let Como to just anybody, the young 
people are lucky to get it. 

Julian Demmean has no relations who count, 
except a twin brother; Julian contrived to be 
born first, fortunately; it mattered a lot, as 
the Demmean property is entailed on the eld¬ 
est son. The brother, Edward, has written 
nicely to Emmy. Julian is very fond of him. 
He’s still serving abroad, in Mesopotamia, a 
captain in the regulars—Garrison Artillery. 

Everybody seems to have met everybody 
else during the war—our dear and valued doc¬ 
tor (Dr. Pinney), though fifty-nine, insisted 
on being sent East in 1917; he knows those 
parts and peoples well, and thought he might 
he useful. The dear man was invalided home 
in six months, but while away he made friends 
with Captain Demmean and speaks quite af¬ 
fectionately of him. 

I’m so glad there’ll be no mother or sister- 
in-law. I think- 

As these last words were written, there came 
a tap at the door, which was only a form, for 
even as he tapped John Grant walked in. 

Six foot two. As spare as a wolf-hound and 



10 


The Shot 

as strong. Forty. A long, thin face with a 
decided outline to it. The eyes are thoughtful 
and keen. The mouth is determined, severe at 
times, perhaps. The corners have a downward 
turn. 

Good appropriate dress. All the details 
well seen to. 

John Grant was the only friend Francis 
Busshe had in the world. They had met in 
their college days and obeying (one may guess) 
the law of opposites blending formed the clos¬ 
est intimacy. Busshe married when he was 
only twenty-one. That made no difference in 
the friendship. He settled at Daunt, where 
John Grant was living with his father. John 
did certainly refuse to be godfather to the 
baby, but when at the age of two little Emmy 
lost her mother, he developed a special inter¬ 
est in the creature; taught her, as time went on, 
the piano and singing, Miss Watkyn doing the 
rest, for cash was scarce at Fir Bank. Poor 
dear Francis Busshe, always staring near¬ 
sightedly into metaphysical works and plan¬ 
ning one which was to top the lot, had been 
pulled up by Grant just on the brink of beg- 


II 


The Shot 

gary. Grant ever after managed his friend’s 
money affairs for him. 

He himself didn’t care about metaphysics. 
He liked astronomy, music was his passion, 
pistol-shooting his hobby. 

He got endlessly talked about at Daunt. 
Perhaps the reason was this. He impressed 
people somehow as a man who might accom¬ 
plish anything, almost; yet his record was nil. 
What was star-gazing? What organ-playing? 
What popping at a mark? Pooh—said his 
neighbours—Grant is an idler. (He had some 
money.) Yet looks—what does he look like? 
Like a Prime Minister of the old days before 
golf came in. That was one suggestion. 

However, from 1914 to 1918 the Daunt 
idler had fought hard in France. 

When on this memorable April morning he 
appeared in the Fir Bank drawing-room, Miss 
Watkyn jumped up from her letter rather 
nervously. 

“So Emmy’s gone out already,” he said. 
“Did you want her?” 

“Her emeralds have just come back from 
the jeweller, and I’ve brought them round.” 
Miss Watkyn re-seated herself. 


“Do.” 

She opened, gazed, gloated. 

“Emmy’s a lucky girl,” she said. 

He replied, “That setting seems to me all 
right.” 

He sat down. There was a short silence. 
The window was wide open. Emmy, leaning 
out of it, had eaten a coconut ice bar; and two 
or three sparrows were quarrelling over some 
sweet crumbs on the sill. Suddenly they flew 
off and then it was quite still. No air stir¬ 
ring. 

“Where has Emmy gone?” said Grant. He 
was in general the least curious of men, but 
always liked to be well posted in the affairs of 
his young favourite. 

“She’s having three good frocks besides the 
wedding one,” said Miss Watkyn solemnly, 
“and they come from town. Rose Swanell is 
making the rest. Emmy’s just run over for 
a fitting.” 

Grant leaned back in his chair and stretched 
out his long legs. 

“How did the dinner at Dr. Pinney’s go off 
last night?” he enquired. 


13 


The Shot 

Miss Watkyn looked stern. 

“It was a pity you couldn’t come. I wished 
for you,” she said. 

“Thanks very much. Why?” 

“There were only the Vicar and the sister 
and nieces who are staying with him besides 
Julian Demmean and Emmy and me—Frank 
didn’t go, of course—and after dinner Julian 
took it into his head to give an imitation of a 
cinema performance, but another man was 
wanted, so—would you believe it?—he sent for 
the Ransoms. I thought if you’d been there 
you might have acted.” 

“I can’t act.” 

“Can’t you? But perhaps you’d have made 
a remark which would have brought Julian to 
his senses.” 

“What’s the matter with the Ransoms?” 

“Surely you know that Maurice Ransom was 
Julian’s valet. He insinuates that he had sec¬ 
retarial work to do, but I know for certain that 
he began life as Julian’s valet—neither more 
nor less. Julian and Edward Demmean lost 
their parents very early and their maternal 
grandmother brought them up at her place in 
the North. Maurice Ransom was the son of 


14 The Shot 

her valued butler. He alludes to having 
played with Julian as a child. That s how. 
The grandmother’s butler’s little son. Well! 
If you think him and his wife fit company for 
Emmy, who’s both a Busshe and a Watkyn —1 
don’t.” 

She paused a moment. Grant seemed a 
trifle absent-minded. “And now he’s set up as 
a photographer,” Miss Watkyn went on. “It’s 
a rise. But does one mix with one’s photog¬ 
rapher?” 

“Hasn’t the War made these distinctions 
seem rather faded?” Grant in his turn inquired. 

Miss Watkyn had learnt nothing during the 
War except how to tear bandages and light a 
fire without wood. So she only jerked her chin 
up and said: 

“Do you admire Mrs. Maurice Hansom? 
You’ve seen her, of course.” 

“Oh, yes.” Here Grant enigmatically smiled. 
“She’s a stunner,” he said. “Well! did they 
give a good show between them?” 

“Emmy and Julian were first-rate, Maurice 
Ransom pretty fair, his wife and the Vicar’s 
niece were poor, I thought. Mrs. Pinney in- 



The \Shot 15 

sisted on having a tray before we left. It was 
late. The Ransoms stayed on, of course.” 

“If, when Emmy’s married,” mused Grant, 
“she has nothing worse to put up with than 
swallowing cakes and wine alongside of the 
Ransoms, I don’t mind much.” 

Miss Watkyn had an excited movement. 

“You don’t believe she’ll be happy? You dis¬ 
like Julian Demmean?” 

Grant looked at her as if in surprise. 

“I was thinking of matrimony in general,” 
he said. Again, the faint but markedly sar¬ 
donic smile with which he had spoken of Mau¬ 
rice Ransom’s wife appeared on his face. “One 
has heard so much about its risks/’ he reminded 
Miss Watkyn. 

“But when love is what theirs is,” she pro¬ 
tested, “Oh—I do call it a bright look-out. 
Dr. Pinney was chaffing them last night. He 
said, ‘what would become of you two if you 
were parted for a day?’ Guess what Emmy re¬ 
plied.” 

Grant shook his head. 

“She said, ‘We’ll try the experiment. Do 
you hear, Julian? To-morrow we won’t meet.’ 
And they’re sticking to it.” 


16 The Shot 

“They don’t mean to meet to-day?” 

“Emmy’s fancy, you know. A joke with 
Dr. Pinney.” 

Grant’s eyes were turned towards the win¬ 
dow. 

“Here comes our gentleman,” he said. 

“Who?” 

“Maurice Ransom carrying something big.” 

Miss Watkyn jerked forward. 

“Oh, how funny!” she called out. “He told 
us he has had his best photo of Julian enlarged 
and copied on porcelain as a wedding present 
for Emmy. It’s tinted too. And here he’s 
bringing it just on top of your emeralds. If 
he comes up, do stop till he’s gone. He 
bothers me. Do.” 

Grant said “All right.” 

And Maurice Ransom, with his wedding 
present in his arms, did come up. 

Maurice is a neatly made man of twenty- 
seven; medium height; hair and eyes dark. 
Rather good-looking. 

He is too clever to be deferential with his 
superiors in station. Pleasant. That is his line, 
If only he were natural! But when anxious to 
produce a good impression he never is—quite. 


The Shot 17 

Maurice had not left England during the 
War. No stigma attaches to him on that ac¬ 
count. The examining doctors detected slight 
heart weakness—very slight it was—but as 
he was good at chemicals the authorities de¬ 
cided to use him in a bomb factory, and he 
proved invaluable. 

So much for Maurice Ransom. 

Miss Watkyn received him with stiff cour¬ 
tesy. 

He didn’t appear to notice the stiffness. He 
said he must apologize for disturbing her in 
the morning, but he’d felt he would like to hand 
the portrait over himself. 

It was done up in Japanese paper under 
brown paper. Grant asked to see it. Maurice 
undid his offering and placed it on a chair, care¬ 
fully choosing a favourable light. 

A head and shoulders study. Julian Dem- 
mean was twenty-seven; here he appeared 
younger; even as he did in reality. Brown hair 
waved back from a smooth, clear forehead; the 
face, looking straight out from the picture, 
had an air of uncommon beauty, though the 
features were by no means altogether sym¬ 
metrical. 


18 The Shot 

The living gaze was almost disquieting; the 
eyes seemed to meet your glance boldly and 
yet at the same moment to elude it. Just as 
Julian’s eyes often did. The mouth was like a 
child’s: very attractive. 

Grant was struck. “That’s good,” he said. 

Miss Watkyn forgot to keep up her formal 
tone. 

“Wonderful!” she exclaimed. 

Maurice smiled demurely and said, “I am 
glad to have satisfied two connoisseurs.” 

“I’m not a connoisseur,” said Miss Watkyn. 

Grant said nothing. He kept his eyes on the 
portrait. In a few minutes Maurice bowed 
himself out, leaving with Miss Watkyn a well 
thought out message for her niece. And then 
the aunt remarked to Grant that Emmy would 
certainly be gone an hour—perhaps two. What 
about the emeralds? Should she take them up 
to her room? He wasn’t the least wrapped 
up in his wedding present. “As you please,” he 
said. Miss Watkyn departed on her self-im¬ 
posed errand. Grant lingered on. He was 
as one of the family, had a latch-key, came and 
went at his pleasure and Francis Busshe de¬ 
pended on him for everything. A nail could 


The Shot 19 

hardly be driven on the premises (if Busshe 
knew of it) without Grant’s being consulted. 

He returned to his survey of the portrait. 
Searchingly he viewed it. Gaily, confidently, 
it viewed him. And yet—What was it upset 
the surface impression of mere careless charm? 
Perhaps Grant wanted to find out. Something 
there was. And so the sharp, grave eyes bored, 
as it were, into the gay, tantalizing ones; min¬ 
ute followed minute; still Grant stood there; 
till he heard Miss Watkyn’s heavy foot on the 
stairs; he was out of the drawing-room before 
she re-entered it. He had already seen Frank 
Busshe breakfasting in bed. 


Chapter 11 


H E left the house. A queer little house it 
is. Old and grey, gauntly, oddly digni¬ 
fied, Fir Bank presents almost flush with the 
high road its windows, fat bows on the first and 
second stories, thin slits above. Just now, in 
the morsel of front garden, white-flowering 
lilac bushes veil the mouldy villa as if in youth.' 

The Daunt highway from London takes here 
the name of Church Road. On the Fir Bank 
side the asphalted footpath turns and leads you 
in two minutes down to the Thames. The op¬ 
posite footpath terminates at the Old Daunt 
churchyard gate, with the vicarage garden gate 
close by. Parallel to Church Road runs Re¬ 
gent’s Road, and these two, with the river-front 
as a base, enclose a triangular island-like space 
piled up hugger-mugger with dwellings, gar¬ 
dens, workshops, hidden entries, unexpected 
issues, wilful greenery. In the fine season this 
corner bit of Old Daunt is a gay sight. 


20 


21 


The Shot 

Directly opposite to Fir Bank a long alley 
crosses the island (as I call it) about in the 
middle. 

And down this alley went John Grant. To 
his left rises a wall, to his right first the back 
yard of a Wesleyan Chapel puts in a nippy 
claim to attention; then come flourishing allot¬ 
ments backed by three old cottages, humble but 
not wretched. Meanwhile the wall to the left 
terminates and the back gardens appear of sun¬ 
dry more modern better-sized cottages which 
face Regent’s Road. In the first of these, the 
one at the corner as you leave the alley, lives 
Emmy Busshe’s little dressmaker, Rose Swa- 
nell, and her mother. Their story is essential 
to the understanding of my story and must be 
told in brief. 

John Grant’s father, a thriving silk-mer¬ 
chant, when he first came to Rufus Lodge, 
Daunt, engaged as gardener a man called 
Swanell. He was mild, quiet, a bit melancholy. 
His wife, Leah, a handsome, clever, unreliable 
young woman, had had a full-blooded gipsy for 
her mother. 

The Swanell pair lived in the same cottage 
where Rose now was. Two sons and two 


22 


The Shot 

daughters came to them. The eldest son was 
in these days indoor man to John Grant; his 
wife reigned in the kitchen. Neither he nor 
his sisters took after Leah; but in the youngest 
son the gipsy strain came out, as if angrily. 
The fact that he was Leah’s spoilt darling 
helped him to his ruin. At eighteen he was 
convicted of having a share in a robbery at a 
neighbouring farm. The first few months of 
his sentence did for him; he died of slow fever 
in the prison infirmary; it was the confinement. 
His mother was never herself again after his 
death. 

The elder daughter lived at home. 

Rose went at sixteen as maid to a widowed 
aunt of John Grant’s, his father’s sister. She 
lived at Como, the house next Rufus Lodge. 
At past forty she had married a destitute Ital¬ 
ian Count; he led his middle-aged Contessa 
an awful life, made a big hole in her property 
and his own health, and then, at the end of six 
years, died gracefully. 

His victim said with truth that her nerves 
were shattered; yet when she came to Daunt 
she changed the name of her house there to 
Como, in memory of her honeymoon. In Daunt, 


The Shot 23 

being its only titled female, she was usually 
known as the Countess—or rather, she wasn’t 
known. She saw no one. Emmy Busshe, how¬ 
ever, a child of five, was encouraged to run in, 
and so the Countess had for society little 
Emmy and young Bose and her nephew, land¬ 
lord and next door neighbour, John Grant. 

Bose was not treated like a servant. The 
Countess couldn’t get on without her—no— 
not for an hour. She was always either scold¬ 
ing the girl or making a fuss of her. Bose 
took it all calmly. Ten years at Como brought 
her to twenty-six. Then the elder Swanell girl 
married, and the father died; Bose having 
promised him first to make a home for Leah. 

A thankless task. Sorrow and gin had 
wrought hard with Leah Swanell; she would 
be away sometimes for weeks together, fore¬ 
gathering with tramping relatives of her moth¬ 
er’s. Her returns were sudden and silent, as 
were her departures. Swanell loved her to the 
last. During her absences he always kept a 
light burning at night in his bedroom window 
as a sign for the strayaway. He charged Bose 
to continue the custom. 

The Countess’s imaginary maladies gave 


24 The Shot 

place to a real one. After her death Como 
stood empty till, in 1914, John Grant threw 
it open to two noble Belgian families; they had 
but lately left when Julian Demmean took the 
place. 

As for Rose’s means of support, Grant al¬ 
lowed the mother a small pension, the girl’s 
dressmaking did the rest. 

Well, just as Grant was about to pass the 
Swanell back-garden side gate, a feeble, ram¬ 
shackle little concern in a low hedge, the sun, 
for the first time that day, broke forth. Al¬ 
most simultaneously the Swanell back door 
flew open, and out from it ran Emmy Busshe, 
pulling with her Rose, reluctant but unequal 
to resistance. 

Emmy. Though she was nineteen her figure 
was only a sketch as yet, not frail, however; 
there was breadth across the shoulders, depth 
in the chest. With its slightly too prominent 
mouth and marked nose, the face could easily 
be found fault with, but charming it was; 
striking; the splendid hazel eyes were fire- 
bright; the blood showed under the skin like 
grape-juice in a grape; life, young life, in every 
lineament was restlessly up; her position as 


The Shot 25 

bride-elect to a man she adored put the last 
touch on all this stir and glow; the whole 
being triumphed unconsciously. 

Still linked with Rose Swanell she reached 
the little hedge, and across it greeted Grant. 
He had pulled up. 

“Good morning,” he said. He smiled, and 
with this smile, quiet though it was, his face 
changed so pleasantly you would hardly have 
known him for the man you have seen hitherto. 

“Where are you going?” Emmy inquisi- 
torially inquired. 

“To a sale at Cotterell.” Cotterell is a 
mainly agricultural district, still surviving, 
about a mile and a half south-east of Daunt. 
“I want to pick up a mowing machine.” 

He turned his gaze towards the elder young 
woman. “How is Rose?” he said to her, gently, 
respectfully. 

“Quite well, thank you,” she replied. Her 
voice was low. 

What is Rose like? Thirty years old now, 
shortish, slim; a sallow face with features which 
are delicate but far from weak; no suggestion 
of the gipsy about her, unless the extremely 
intelligent look in her eyes when she lifts them 


2,6 The Shot 

be taken as such. She dresses soberly. Miss 
Watkyn doesn’t object to the intimacy her 
niece keeps up with the little dressmaker be¬ 
cause, though Emmy ignores the class differ¬ 
ence, Rose is ever careful to mark her sense 
of it. 

“Rose is not quite well,” Emmy declared. 
“Mrs. Swanell came back last night between 
one and two, and Rose got no sleep.” 

This time Leah had only been away a week. 
She vanished seldomer and returned sooner 
than formerly. Her years began to tell. 

“It didn’t matter,” Rose murmured. 

“I’m going to ask Mrs. Swanell to do a 
prophecy for me,” Emmy cried out. “About 
my married life, you know.” 

“Miss Emmy!” 

“What, Rose?” 

“Please, miss, don’t make a joke of my 
mother’s gift.” 

“Why, Rose!” said Grant, looking at her 
with an interested air. “Do you believe in sec¬ 
ond sight?” 

“All I know is I’m thankful the state takes 
mother so seldom,” she said, without return- 


The Shot 27 

ing his look. “I think it’s terrible when holes 
come in the curtain.” 

“The curtain which divides us from the fu¬ 
ture?” said Grant. “Well, I’m a sceptic. Mrs. 
Swanell has never prophesied to me .” 

“I’ll prophesy to you then,” said Emmy. (At 
the same time she gave Rose’s hand an affec¬ 
tionate squeeze.) “I prophesy that on the 29 th 
instant” (the date fixed for her wedding), 
“dad won’t find himself equal to giving me 
away. If I prove right—Granty, will you 
doit?” 

“No,” he replied. 

“You won’t?” 

“No, Eaglet.” 

Why Eaglet? If Emmy had been a boy, 
Francis Busshe would have called the boy 
Hegel. I am told the German metaphysicians 
have been relegated to obscurity. So perhaps 
I had better mention that Hegel was a giant 
one. Emmy turned out a girl. But Busshe 
said her second name must be Hegel, and it 
was. The child’s nurse, seeing Hegel written 
down one day, ever after pronounced it Eagle. 

“And what’s your name, darling?” 


28 The Shot 

“Come, Miss, speak up. Say Emily Eagle 
Busshe.” 

This amused the parents, and in her own 
home baby Emmy was called Eaglet. It was 
still her father’s name for her. And Grant 
used it now and then. 

“The Eaglet’s wings are growing,” Emmy 
with a gay smile informed him. “It will soon 
leave the nest.” 

She stepped back and gave in one instant a 
wonderfully vivid suggestion of a bird flying, 
but in order to stretch and wave her arms like 
pinions she had to drop Rose’s hand. Rose 
slipped away; went in. 

“There goes a good girl,” said Grant. “Is 
the mother indoors?” 

“No. She had her pipe and her tea and went 
out before I came over.” And now Emmy 
looked with a conscious sort of intrepidity at 
Grant, and abruptly delivered herself of the 
thing she had come out to say. As she spoke 
she changed colour a little; it was hardly a 
blush. 

“Have you seen Julian this morning?” 

“Yes.” 

“When?” 


The Shot 29 

“We’d agreed to have a bit of pistol practice 
before breakfast—a match.” 

“You didn’t beat!” 

“Very well.” 

“You did?” 

“I did.” 

“I hate him to be beaten.” 

“Nonsense.” 

“Why is he so fond of it?” 

“Why am I?” 

“He is a good shot?” 

“Quite good. Only I’ve had more practice.” 

She seemed satisfied. “We’re parted,” she 
said. “Did he tell you?” 

“Miss Watkyn did.” 

“Blessed Benny. Yes, we’re parted for 
twenty-four hours.” 

“How are you getting on?” 

“First-rate,” she said darting a mischievous 
look. “Tell Dr. Pinney so if you meet him.” 
A pause. “How is Julian getting on?” she 
said. 

“Couldn’t undertake to report.” 

“Did you breakfast together?” 

“No. By the by he mentioned he’d be writ¬ 
ing letters all the morning.” 


30 The Shot 

“He said that was what he meant to do.” 

“While you try on dresses.” 

She nodded. 

She leaned further over the hedge. 

Breaking a twig from it she looked sweetly 
at Grant. “So you really mean,” she said, 
“that if dad fails me you won’t give me away?” 

“I mean it. But dad shan’t fail you. I 
promise you that.” 

“Very well. Or—Benny might do. I must 
have one of you,” she said slowly. “Don’t you 
remember the poem I wrote when I was six, 
about you three people? My one poem.” 

He pretended he didn’t remember because 
he wanted to hear her say it. Emmy recited: 

I’m not alone. 

I’ve darling Frank 
Who’s a regular crank 
And Benny and Granty, 

Benny’s my aunty. 

And Granty’s my own. 

Grant stood looking at her. 

“I’d heard the housemaid call dad a crank,” 
she said, “and I thought it meant something 
grand. About as good as a baronet.” 

She laughed; it was a bursting bubbling al* 


The Shot 31 

most soundless laugh; she threw her head back, 
her white teeth flashed. 

Possessed by sensations which were new to 
her; saying she scarcely knew what; her love- 
absorption now hiding, now peeping out, she 
let herself go for a minute or two in this laugh; 
she seemed like a cup filled too full when it 
gets a tilt; a musical instrument tuned above 
concert pitch, or, as her head went back, and 
the sunlight beamed into her eyes, truly the 
bird she had enacted, rising, rejoicing, staring 
unabashed at the sun. 

All Saints’ Alley (named from the Daunt 
parish church), was little used. At this mo¬ 
ment, the cottage children being at school, not 
a soul showed up or down save Grant and 
Emmy; with the hedge rising to her bosom he 
saw her; there were greenest green fruit-trees 
in Rose’s little garden; the back of the big 
church in which she was to be married domi¬ 
nated the scene. A pale cast had come over 
the sunshine. 

She still laughed uncontrollably. 

“I’ll lose my mowing-machine,” Grant said; 
lifted his peaked tweed cap and walked off. 

She called after him in mere idleness, follow- 


32 The Shot 

ing with her eyes the lean vigorous figure, 
Either he didn’t hear or didn’t chose to. Gone; 
gone with his long strides. 

Rose was at Emmy’s side again. “Dear 
duck! isn’t he a dear duck?” Emmy said. 

Rose said nothing. 

“Isn’t he?” Emmy repeated impatiently. 

Rose stooped right down; she pulled at the 
strap of her open shoe. 

“Mr. Grant is a true gentleman,” she said, 
as she came upright again. 

“Oh you parcel of pins!” Emmy seized Rose 
and kissed her. “There! I’m pricked! Iam!” 
The church clock began striking ten. “Time! 
time!” the madcap cried. “We’ve none to 
waste.” 

With the fifth stroke they were in the cot¬ 
tage. The pale sunshine faded altogether. 


Chapter 111 


T HE Watkyn nose is a long aquiline with 
a bump in the centre of the bridge. Bene- 
dicta loved to see hers in the glass not from 
vanity, but because it said so plainly, “Come 
what may you are one of the Watkyns of 
Shropshire.” 

This morning, while putting on her hat, she 
viewed the important feature with special com¬ 
placency. Then sallied forth. She carried 
in her coat pocket a recipe for making pine- 
apple jelly out of turnips which she had prom¬ 
ised the night before to Mrs. Pinney. 

She crossed the road. Down All Saints’ 
Alley she sent a glance as she passed it on the 
left. No sign of life there. The Wesleyan 
Chapel and the boat-builders’ yard next to it 
went unheeded. Sticking itself up with ugly, 
and at this quiet moment enigmatical insist¬ 
ency, the lofty signal board with Dangerous 
Corner in huge letters on it offended, as usual, 


33 


34 The Shot 

her eye. She marched on to the Triangle. This 
is an open space which in a French country 
town would certainly be converted into a Place . 
The main road spreads out here to receive Re¬ 
gent’s Road and another at right angles to it, 
Argyle Avenue. 

To the right of the Triangle, as you face 
London, smirks the smart little Roebuck 
Hotel, built on the site of an old inn of the same 
name. Beside it, the garden touching the Roe¬ 
buck grounds, a small red house, compact, cosy¬ 
looking, bears on its gate a brass plate with the 
inscription—Maurice Ransom. All Saints’ 
Photographic Studio. 

After having sped across the Triangle, Miss 
Watkyn was exactly on a level with the All 
Saints’ Photographic Studio on the other side 
of the way. She favoured the premises with 
a long stare. Nothing would convince her 
that the wave in Mrs. Maurice Ransom’s hair 
was natural; and she never passed without hop¬ 
ing to catch a glimpse of her, taking curls out 
of pins. But the little house, looking out on 
Dangerous Corner, showed nothing. The 
ground floor window-boxes were full of wall¬ 
flowers. 


The Shot 35 

From this point stretches Daunt Road 
proper, and it pursues for three-quarters of a 
mile a steady river-like course, bearing on its 
hanks, so to speak, only oldish houses standing 
in their own grounds. 

All these houses are alike in having an air of 
repose and good breeding about them; but 
they were raised at varying dates, mostly by 
intending owners; no mere builder’s taste has 
been consulted here; each habitation bears a 
stamp of its own. 

First comes Como. Seclusion is not aimed at. 
Passers by are free to view the long, pretty 
house, low for its length, built of brownish 
brick; the entrance-door, the veranda, the win¬ 
dow-frames are green. How open-looking is 
this many-windowed front with its two wings! 
The house seems to promise hospitality. From 
the flower beds tulips smile and beckon. The 
trees fall away on either side. 

Julian Demmean was living here, with only 
a bachelor’s scratch establishment. To Miss 
Watkyn fell the task of collecting proper serv¬ 
ants against the return of the young pair from 
their honeymoon. Her brow was heavy with 
the thought of servants as she skirted Como’s 


36 The Shot 

garden palings. But she was roused by the 
sight of some one entering at the gate. Some 
one who had been walking in the same direc¬ 
tion as herself but on the opposite side of the 
way; and now the figure crossed, and went in 
through the gate of Como, while Miss Watkyn 
was still three or four minutes off it. 

A female. Not the least remarkable-look¬ 
ing. But curiosity was a leading trait in Miss 
Watkyn’s character. And though she had 
lately taken to reading-spectacles, she retained, 
for objects sufficiently removed, the eye of a 
hawk. That eye eagerly swept the stranger. 

A lady—a sort of a one, anyhow. Quite mid¬ 
dle-aged or almost elderly. The figure stodgy. 
The walk suggested tender feet. A brown 
skirt, a long black satin coat, a green hat with 
black plumes and black lace veil, a mauve 
scarf; the toilette was shabby and inharmoni¬ 
ous ; but each article had in its day been good. 

The lady carried a little red plush bag. Her 
manner as she closed the gate of Como behind 
her was at once anxious and determined; and 
Miss Watkyn, getting a good sight of her back 
as she herself went by the gate, decided that 
Julian Demmean’s morning caller was a col- 


The Shot 37 

lector for some charity. “Well, she’ll find an 
easy prey in Julian.” 

Now comes Rufus Lodge, John Grant’s 
abode and his father’s before him. What a 
contrast to Como! Trees grow right down to 
the gate; in this season of light foliage the 
house can be described; later it will be hidden 
as in a wood. It is red brick; but old, old red 
brick; giving out hues, dark, deep, rich, ripe, 
fading, dead; the structure is square, regular; 
formal yet rustic. The ivied windows, the en¬ 
trance-door with its spacious porch, have a 
brooding, guarded look. The beautiful garden 
lies at the back. 

Miss Watkyn’s thoughts change. “Emmy 
has always been such an interest for John 
Grant. I hope when she’s married he won’t 
marry. Whatever should I do with poor 
Frank Busshe if he did ?” 

Thus ruminating she passes out of sight; 
and we let her go, and enter the roomy but 
darkish kitchen of Rufus Lodge. It has a low 
ceiling and the windows are too small. 

At the table a girl was stoning raisins while 
the wife of Leah Swanell’s eldest son, a quick- 


38 The Shot 

eyed, plump, smooth-skinned person, nearing 
forty, rummaged in a cupboard. 

Her husband, Alfred Swanell, came in. 
Small, thin, unhealthy-looking. 

“Lottie—the old lady’s back.” 

The wife shut the cupboard door. 

“How do you know?” 

“Why, she came and knocked at the side 
door. She’s in our room. Talking very 
queer.” 

“Not been to the Bunch of Grapes -” 

“No, she’s perfectly sober. Can’t you 
come? She makes my head ache.” 

Lottie went with him. 

The housekeeper’s room was small but 
extremely comfortable. A clear fire burned 
in the grate. The master having gone out, 
Swanell had been sitting over it with the 
morning’s Times when his mother disturbed 
him. In the fireside corner stood a fine old 
high-backed arm-chair, much knocked about; 
yet it gave an air to the room. 

Bolt upright in this chair, with a stick lean¬ 
ing beside her, sat Leah Swanell. It was 
easy to see how handsome she had been. The 
face was now like a cameo cut in lava; so dark 



The Shot 39 

from exposure; the cameo had an ivory set¬ 
ting; bands of yellow-white hair drooping 
round it. The front teeth were still perfect; 
the eyes, retreated into hollows, had a topaz 
gleam. The thinness of the face was terrible; 
the skin seemed almost too tight on the jaws 
to let them move. 

The fine proportions of Leah’s wasted figure 
made her costume appear dignified; it con¬ 
sisted of a black stiff gown, a grey cloak, 
and a dirty old soft felt hat with a clean 
spotted silk handkerchief tied over it. 

An indescribably quick glance was her only 
reply to Lottie Swanell’s loud “Good morn¬ 
ing, mother.” But when her daughter-in-law 
produced a bottle of home-brewed anisette she 
grew more civil. 

“Your health,” she said. The fiery liqueur 
was gone at a gulp. 

“I’ll take another glass,” she said. 

“Better not, mother,” warned her son. He 
signed to his wife to lock the bottle up again 
in the wall-press. She didn’t do so, however. 
“As you please,” said Leah scornfully. 

She leaned forward, warming her hands at 
the fire, and was silent a minute or two. Then 


40 The Shot 

looked up. “So little Emmy Busshe’s wed¬ 
ding is on the twenty-ninth/’ she said. “She’s 
grown a fine girl, and has a handsome young 
man. Ah! don’t I remember when she was 
three, I stood by the All Saints’ church gate 
one Sunday morning to hear the bells clamour, 
and over the road she flew, bare curls and a 
white frock, and her hand went into mine. 
f I like the bells,’ she said, and when they’d 
done, and I took her over to Fir Bank, the 
nurse, who’d never missed her, told me the 
child was clean mad on the bells; well, well!— 
they’ll start going on the twenty-ninth; and 
I’ll be there, little Emmy, I’ll watch you up 
to the altar.” Abruptly changing her tone, 
“Another glass of your stuff, Lottie Swanell,” 
she said. Careless of her husband’s disap¬ 
proval, Lottie re-filled the old woman’s glass. 

Gone again at one jerk. And then Leah 
grew drowsy. She leaned back in the arm¬ 
chair, and closed her eyes. In a few minutes 
she seemed to sleep, and Lottie returned to the 
kitchen. She hadn’t been there a quarter of an 
hour when Swanell burst in. Lottie needed no 
call beyond what was in his face. Close to- 


The Shot 41 

gether they hurried into the housekeeper’s 
room. 

Leah was standing, holding with her left 
hand to the chimneypiece. Strangely stiff was 
her gesture; all her breath appeared to be 
indrawn; the eyes were wide open, yet showed 
only the under part of the whites. There was 
something so dismaying in her aspect that even 
Lottie turned pale, while Swanell, as if in 
bodily fear of the old woman, set the room door 
wider open. 

“The twenty-ninth,” Leah called out in a 
most singular voice, for it seemed to come 
rumbling up from the abdomen; “what ails the 
twenty-ninth of April?—what’s gone with 
Emmy Busshe’s wedding day? The twenty- 
ninth, the twenty-ninth, the twenty-ninth. I 
don’t hear the bells. I don’t see the bride in 
her white. I don’t see the clergymen in their 
white. I don’t see the bridegroom with a 
white hot-house flower in his buttonhole. I 
see—I see-” 

She was seized as if with a convulsion; 
struggled; then grew still. But Lottie Swan- 
ell’s interest was wildly excited. She seized 



42 The Shot 

hold of Leah by the arm. “What do you see?” 
she shouted. 

Leah came to herself quite suddenly. It 
was like the snapping-to of a spring. “See?” 
she exclaimed in her natural tones, and showed 
her strong teeth in a cunning smile, “I see the 
anisette still on the table. I’ll take another 
glass.” 

“Do you know what you’ve been saying?” 
asked Lottie. 

“Saying? What’s saying? It’s doing 
counts. Give me another glass.” 

“You’ve had enough, mother,” soothed 
Lottie. 

“Have I?” Leah retorted so fiercely that 
Lottie jumped. “Then I thank you; I’ve sat 
in John Grant’s father’s arm-chair, and 
warmed my hand at John Grant’s red hot 
coals, and tasted the anisette made by his 
housekeeper; and I thank you, John Grant’s 
servants, I thank you both. Ha, my Jimmy” 
(her lost son) “was never in service. Free as 
a bird, free as the air the bird flies in. He 
wasn’t sentenced to death yet they killed him 
in the prison. Only eighteen. And I can’t 


The Shot 43 

get justice—not in this world. Good morn¬ 
ing!” 

Instead of aiding herself with her stick, she 
snatched it up under one arm and was gone 
in a moment. 

“At the gate already!” muttered Swanell, 
staring from the side door. 

“I never saw her in one of her turns before,” 
said Lottie reflectively. 

“A parent like that is a heavy cross,” com¬ 
mented Swanell; “Come in. Especially a 
female parent. In females everything’s so 
notorious.” 

“Well, it might be worse. Few gentlemen 
would act as Mr. Grant has done and we 
might have had to support her among us. 
Take a glass of anisette, and don’t look so 
gone.” 

They sipped in company. 

“She ought to be in the county lunatic 
asylum,” said Swanell. 

“It’d kill her. And after all, what harm 
does she do?” 

“Brings a bad report on us.” 

“Stuff.” 


44 


The Shot 

“That was nice talk of hers for a gardener’s 
widow! She despises service.” 

“She’s childish.” 

“Don’t you mention anything to anybody 
as to what she said respecting the twenty- 
ninth. She knew when the Countess was 
going to die, Rose has told me.” 

“An elderly lady the doctors had given over. 
How clever! No, the anisette went to her 
head, that’s the long and the short of it. Here’s 
Ada Cramp, the girl from Fir Bank, coming 
up the drive. What’s she after, I wonder?” 

Ada Cramp had only come to ask for the 
loan of a colander. 

Passing Como on her way back from Dr. 
Pinney’s house, Miss Watkyn glanced here 
and there as if she expected to see again the 
person who had drawn her attention earlier 
in the morning. But under darkened heavens 
the long double-winged building had taken on 
a lonesome air. The gay troops of tulips in 
front of the house were as if frozen. So still. 
There were no clouds in the sky; a cloud sug¬ 
gests movement; one livid uniform grey held 
back the light. Birds were hiding. Young 
leaves showed their whitish under sides. Sud- 


The Shot 45 

denly a puff of wind came; it was like the deep 
unconscious pant of a fever patient. 

Miss Watkyn thought she would find Emmy 
at home. But the girl hadn’t returned. As 
the aunt looked across from the drawing-room 
window to All Saints’ Alley a white dazzling 
scythe precipitated itself from the sky-veil 
earthwards; a crack and a roar followed; the 
storm had begun. 

Nervous Miss Watkyn was not. Yet she 
felt a wish to speak to some one. She went 
and half opened Frank Busshe’s study door 
and looked in, a very unusual thing for her 
to do. 

He was sitting, leaning forward, at his long 
writing-table; buried in a book. Miss Watkyn 
coughed. He looked up. In early youth he 
had been brilliantly handsome. Now he was 
but the shadow of a brilliance. 

“What a storm!” ejaculated Miss Watkyn. 

“Is Eaglet safe in the house?” he said. 

“Yes,” said Miss Watkyn. 

Aunt Benny and Emmy did sometimes fib 
to Busshe. He had sick nerves and the least 
thing, especially if it was connected with 
Emmy, upset him. Emmy fibbed, and 


46 The Shot 

thought no more about it; because she had 
been brought up on the idea that it was the 
only possible treatment for dad. But Miss 
Watkyn always strove to reconcile her con¬ 
science to these leaps from veracity. On this 
occasion it was easy. She believed Emmy 
to be safe in a house—Bose Swanell’s. It was 
simply a question of substituting the definite 
for the indefinite article. Nothing, that. 

Busshe was pacified and without further 
notice of the storm sank back into his book. 
Miss Watkyn left him. 

The thunder and lightning were quickly 
over, and down came sheets of rain. “Ada, 
Ada,” called Miss Watkyn, and Eliza, the 
old cook, appeared half-way up the basement 
stairs. “Tell Ada to shut all the windows.” 

Eliza did it herself, and then explained that 
she had sent round to Rufus Lodge to borrow 
a colander. Ada ought to have got back well 
before the storm began. 

“The kitchen girl is her cousin,” said Miss 
Watkyn, “it’s a mistake to send her there.” 

“I need a new colander,” said Eliza. 

Miss Watkyn disliked buying anything, 


The Shot 47 

She changed the subject as Eliza had known 
she would. 

The rain ceased. In a few minutes the pools 
in the garden reflected blue sky. And Miss 
Watkyn came out of the kitchen, meaning to 
go upstairs and watch for Emmy. 

All these old houses on the east side of the 
Daunt road, as it nears the river, are backed 
by the outskirts of a royal park. Both the 
front and the back basement doors at Fir 
Bank have glass in them, and when the front 
doors open you see right through the little 
house to the great park, and the effect is 
charming. 

Miss Watkyn, half-way down the basement 
passage, just where the stairs start, stood still 
a moment; she heard Ada Cramp arriving at 
the back and wondered; should she stop and 
scold her for dawdling or leave it to Eliza. 
She then saw through the glass panes in the 
other door, with a degree of relief which was 
incomprehensible to herself, Emmy coming 
slowly up to the house. What a pretty figure 
of a girl she looked in her short dress; white 
with a broad mauve stripe. Meanwhile the 
back door opened; and standing at it Ada 


48 The Shot 

Cramp went off in a fit of hysterics. With 
her shrieks came words: “Mr. Demmean’s 
killed. Oh, oh! Mr. Demmean’s been found 
dead. Oh, oh, oh! they’ve found him lying 
dead in the study at Como—shot through the 
heart. Oh, poor Miss Emmy! Oh, oh!” 

Emmy had opened the basement front door 
which during the day was always left on the 
latch. The maidservant’s tidings reached the 
young lady. She fell forward senseless. 

Ten minutes later Dr. Pinney drove up. 
Miss Watkyn, at the upper front door, sprang 
to meet him. She grasped at both his hands. 

“It’s not true; say it’s not true,” she 
implored. 

“I thought I’d be in time to be the one to 
warn you,” he said. “Does Emmy know?” 

Miss Watkyn nodded. 

“But is it true?” 

She hoped to hear she knew not what. 

“It’s true,” said the doctor, “Julian Dem- 
mean was found half an hour ago—Ransom 
found him—lying dead in the room at Como he 
called his study,—shot through the heart.” 


Chapter IV 


F IVE to six months passed. At half-past 
eight on an October evening, the hunter’s 
moon, partly seen, leaning like a beautiful 
phantom over the topmost ridge of a cloud 
fortress, called up from the night another 
phantom, Como, the long silent shape of a 
house, with ochre tints gone white under the 
moon’s touch. One front window showed 
light; the dining-room shutters hadn’t been 
put up, and the curtains let through lamp glow 
and fire blaze. Two men, having done their 
dinner, turned round to the fire. 

They were Dr. Pinney and Edward Dem- 
mean. 

Captain Demmean was home with three 
months’ leave. On the very day of his arrival 
at Como he had sent Pinney a note asking how 
soon he could come and dine. Pinney said 
to the messenger, “To-morrow.” And here 
he was. 


49 


50 The Shot 

He guessed that Ned Demmean wanted to 
talk about his Brother. So far, however, no 
way had been made. The doctor at first meet¬ 
ing muttered words among which “Sorry” 
alone was audible, and Demmean nodded and 
looked on the floor and that was all. 

Ned Demmean was thinking of leaving the 
army. During dinner that subject came up. 
Not the subject. Julian wasn’t mentioned. 

But now- Now, thought Pinney, surely 

he will speak. 

They sat smoking. People say Pinney with 
his firm reddish cheeks, clear blue eyes and 
sandy-blonde head has something about him 
liker sixteen than sixty-two. Certainly, Ned 
Demmean looked the more tired of the two. 
A quiet face, pale under sunburn; features 
as if blunted in the modelling; he was about 
the same height as Julian, five foot ten, other¬ 
wise unlike him. Broader, shorter in the neck 
and legs; stronger; fairly unnoticeable; while 
Julian drew eyes. 

During Pinney’s absence at the war he 
hadn’t been long in the same quarters with 
Ned Demmean; but things happened which 
drew them close together. Accordingly there 



The Shot 51 

could be no awkwardness in a silence between 
these two over the after-dinner fire, and as, 
contrary to his companion’s expectations, Ned 
seemed inclined only to ruminate while he used 
up his cigarettes—Pinney smoked a pipe— 
why, the doctor let him. 

They had had oysters, a bright little Irish 
stew, pheasant, cranberry tart with cream, a 
perfect cut of cheese; the drink was whisky; 
there were lemons on the table, and a rack of 
thin toast in the place of bread. The meal 
suited Pinney exactly; gallantly he had en¬ 
joyed everything and perhaps, on account of 
his digestion, wasn’t sorry to have the grave 
moment deferred. That it would come before 
he left he still felt certain. 

And he was right. His host was simply 
getting ready for it. Crosse & Crutchley, the 
Demmeans’ solicitors, had sent out to the sur¬ 
viving brother all the information they could 
collect about Julian Demmean’s death. Ned 
studied these papers till he knew them by 
heart. 

How often already has the tragedy at Como 
enacted itself in his brain! And now and here, 
within the walls which closed in that inex- 


52 The Shot 

plicable happening, it all comes suddenly over 

him with fresh force. Let it come. Thus. 

When writing to his brother, Julian often 
spoke of himself in the third person as J. D. 
That was how, while he dwelled on all that was 
known of Julian’s last day of life, Ned thought 
of him. 

Well. On the morning of the fifteenth of 
April, 1920, J. D., a young fellow, in good 
health, easy position, going in a fortnight to 
be married for love, got up early and went 
into the Rufus Lodge garden which is next 
his own (the gardens communicate) to do some 
pistol practice. He and his neighbour had 
agreed to have a match. 

He was badly beaten, he told his servant 
so, when at half-past eight he came in. There 
were in the house only this servant, Jacob 
Hinchley, a youngish man from Daunt; a mid¬ 
dle-aged widow of the name of Grove, who had 
been caretaker at Como before J. D. took the 
place, and her young daughter Peggy. Usually 
J. D. went round after breakfast to Fir Bank, 
the home of his fiancee. Miss Busshe, a four 
or five minutes’ walk. But on the evening of 
April 14th, as a result of some chaffing from 


The Shot 53 

an old friend, Miss Busshe, for fun, made a 
public pact with J. D.; they were to spend the 
next day, April 15th, apart. While J. D. 
was breakfasting he rang for Hinchley and 
told him to go to a sale at Cotterell, about 
two miles off, to buy gardening implements. 
Hinchley left soon after half-past nine. 

Mrs. Grove, who shared a roomy attic with 
her daughter, had been awake all night with 
a bad tooth. At eight o’clock Peggy made her 
a cup of tea and put a sleeping powder in it. 
Between half-past nine and ten Peggy took 
some flowers in to J. D.’s study as he called 
it—it used to be known as the morning-room. 
He was writing at the secretaire, his revolver 
beside him. He asked Peggy Grove to go to 
Kaye, the nearest considerable town, to get 
him some tobacco of a brand unobtainable in 
Daunt. She told him about her mother and 
he said, “Never mind, nothing will be wanted.” 

The girl got her bedrooms done. When she 
returned to J. D.’s study to ask if he had any 
more commissions for her in Kaye he was 
standing by the fire. He had finished and 
addressed a letter to his brother Captain 
Demmean who was serving abroad; he asked 


54 The Shot 

Peggy to get a foreign stamp and post it. 
She noticed another letter, fastened up and 
addressed but not stamped which lay on the 
secretaire. Peggy didn’t see what name and 
address it bore. There was a ring at the hall- 
door. Before answering it she said to J. D., 
what would he do if a ring came during her 
absence and Hinchley hadn’t returned. Her 
mother was sound. He laughed and replied, 
“What should I do? An interesting question. 
The answer is, Wait and see!” He seemed 
quite himself—very bright. She went to the 
door. The visitor was an elderly lady, a 
stranger. Peggy thought she looked far from 
well off. She handed the girl her card and 
asked to see Mr. Demmean for a few minutes. 
Peggy only invited her just inside the hall 
door. When J. D. had glanced at the card 
he said, “Show her in!” Peggy Grove’s lover 
was employed at a motor establishment in 
Kaye, her head was running on the unexpected 
chance her errand gave her of seeing him, and 
she never troubled to look at the card. She 
showed the lady in and went off. 

The garden at Como extends widely to one 
side of the house and on this side its wall 


The Shot 55 

forms one of the boundaries to a large open 
space in the Daunt road known as The Tri¬ 
angle. J. D. employed an old jobbing gar¬ 
dener called Robert Smith; he had as yet no 
regular gardener. On the morning of the 15th 
Smith was trimming some bushes under the 
wall by The Triangle. So he was a good way 
from the house. He came up there at half¬ 
past eleven for his lunch. 

At the back of Como and the house next it, 
Rufus Lodge, there are fields called, on ac¬ 
count of the use made of them, the lambing- 
fields. They are the property of the only 
farmer who, in this rapidly suburbanizing 
neighbourhood, still contrives to carry on. A 
narrow path across these fields forms a short 
cut to Daunt station. The tenants of Como 
and Rufus Lodge are allowed by the farmer 
to take this path, but they have to be careful 
not to abuse the privilege. 

As Smith got near the house he saw an 
elderly lady in a brown dress and black coat 
walking slowly down the garden at the back 
as if bound for the door in the wall which 
gives on the lambing-fields. He didn’t think 
about it, found his lunch put out by Peggy 


56 The Shot 

Grove on the bench in the kitchen-yard where 
he usually ate it, and had nearly done when 
he heard two pistol shots, one coming in a 
minute, or perhaps more, after the other. 
Smith is rather deaf. He concluded that the 
gentleman of the house was practising in the 
piece of garden he reserved for this purpose; 
and paying no attention went back to his work. 

Mrs. Grove drowsing in her attic heard the 
pistol-shots too. At least she was sure she 
heard one. Couldn’t say for certain more than 
that. She was still stupid with the sleeping- 
powder. 

After this comes a blank period filled up 
only by a short but terrific storm. 

The next traceable incident is that Mrs. 
Grove really rouses up. She thinks she hears 
church bells. Then is startled by a scream 
which brings her completely to herself. She 
describes it as terrible and piteous. This out¬ 
cry is made by Maurice Ransom, a young man 
formerly in J. D.’s employment as travelling 
secretary, now established as a photographer 
on the Daunt Road. 

Young Ransom wanted three hundred 
pounds to help him on in his business and 


The Shot 57 

J. D. was lending him the sum. He had told 
him to call on the afternoon of the 15th; said 
he would write a cheque for the amount. But 
Young Ransom getting a message on the tele¬ 
phone to engage him for wedding-party groups 
at an important house near Kaye, he came to 
see if it would suit J. D. to settle the matter 
earlier. He had rung at the hall-door (the 
ringing was turned by Mrs. Grove into church 
bells) and getting no answer made his way 
round to the back of the house. The footing 
he was on at Como authorized his doing this. 
Glancing in at the open French window of 
the study to see if J. D. was there, he saw 
him lying on the floor, entered, and found 
him to be dead. 

He flew to Rufus Lodge. Mr. John 
Grant, the owner both of Rufus Lodge and 
Como, was just returned from the same sale at 
Cotterell which Hinchley had attended. Mr. 
Grant is a middle-aged man of means and 
leisure. Very intimate at Fir Bank. By 
what seemed a lucky chance Dr. Pinney of 
The Elms, Daunt Road, had driven up just 
as Grant got to his own doorstep. He came 
to ask Grant to vote for the candidate he 


58 The Shot 

favoured at the approaching election for the 
Daunt District Council. When Ransom 
arrived they were together in the library. They 
went round at once. But there was nothing 
to be done. J. D. was dead—shot through 
the heart. His pistol, a six-chambered Army 
Service revolver, lay near, as if he had dropped 
it. Dr. Pinney’s first remark after examining 
the wound was, “Whoever did this, it looks 
like the work of an expert.” 

The Coroner’s jury arrived at the conclusion 
that the expert was the unfortunate young 
man himself. When giving evidence at the 
inquest, Maurice Ransom said that for some 
while back he had noticed a liability in J. D. 
to attacks of melancholy. The two often met; 
J. D. being interested in photography. On 
one occasion in the garden at Como they came 
on a mole that had been trapped and killed. 
J. D. looked fixedly at the creature, touched it 
with his stick, said, “Poor morsel!” then added, 
“After all, perhaps it would be better for me 
if I lay like that.” 

Another time he mentioned a play he had 
seen acted before the war. Ibsen’s Hedda 
Gabler. The sensation-loving Hedda incites 


The Shot 59 

her lover to shoot himself—through the heart. 
He does shoot himself, but in the stomach. 
J. D. said, “How could such a blunder be 
possible?” He kept up a sort of worry about 
it. But Hansom was the only person who 
had heard him talk like this. 

Mrs. Grove, however, testified to having 
thought the poor young gentleman low-spirited 
at times. And three days before Mr. Dem- 
mean’s death when she came out with her 
duster into his study, thinking he was out, she 
saw him, she said, at the secretaire in a most 
dejected attitude, his arms before him and his 
head on his arms; and though she couldn’t 
swear to it, she was practically certain he was 
crying. 

The idea of temperamental melancholy was 
accepted as accounting for the suicide. 

Yet there were puzzling circumstances in 
the case. 

1. A second Army Service revolver of the 
same weight as the one used by J. D. was 
found in the study; on a little sofa in a niche. 
One chamber had been emptied. This fact 
was explained as follows. J. D. collected 
pistols. He had a cabinet crammed with them. 


60 The Shot 

He maintained that there were lucky and un¬ 
lucky pistols, and apparently was always hop¬ 
ing to come on a lucky one. So it was supposed 
he had simply fetched in another of his own 
pistols before the act. As if doubting which 
he would use. Unfortunately no one could 
say whether the second pistol came out of 
the cabinet or not. J. D.’s servant, Jacob 
Hinchley, might have been expected to know, 
but he is a specially pacific person, was pre¬ 
vented by a stiff arm from serving in the war; 
he has no knowledge of fire-arms, no interest 
in them; he never went to the cabinet. 

2. Owing to a whim on the part of Mr. 
Grant’s invalid aunt who formerly lived at 
Como, the room she used as her sitting room— 
the same as J. D.’s study—communicates with 
her bedroom, a smaller room above, by means 
of a spiral staircase, so that the invalid could 
retire to rest at any moment quite privately. 
This was her motive for having the staircase 
constructed at considerable expense. Two 
rooms simply opening into each other wouldn’t 
have done. She liked to live on the ground- 
floor and sleep higher. J. D. fancied the little 
bedroom, and was using it while still a 


The Shot 61 

bachelor. Up to the window grows a splendid 
magnolia. After the morning of April 15th 
this creeper was found to bear traces of recent 
rough usage. As if some one had got down 
by it. On the other hand, the damage might 
very well have been done by the storm. 

3. An engraving from Sir Thomas Law¬ 
rence’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington, 
which hung on the wall to the side of the sec¬ 
retaire in J. D.’s study, had been pierced by 
a bullet through the eyes. This must have 
been the result of one of the two shots heard 
by the jobbing gardener, Robert Smith. J. D. 
had often said he disliked the picture. (When 
taking Como he bought the furniture of Mr. 
Grant at a valuation.) Yet he refused to 
move it. Apparently he had mutilated the 
picture before destroying himself. 

4. The elderly lady in a brown dress, black 
mantle and green hat, seen by Peggy Grove 
and Robert Smith, and also by Miss Busshe’s 
aunt who observed her going in at the gate 
of Como when she passed that way in the 
morning—that person couldn’t be traced. No 
one at Daunt station or in the town remem¬ 
bered seeing anyone who answered to her 


62 The Shot 

description. She was advertised for without 
effect. She seemed to have sunk into the 
earth. 

5. The little door in the Como back-garden 
wall giving on the lambing-fields, and the other 
one which, at the end of the foot-track, gives 
access to the road, are fitted with the same pad¬ 
lock; so that one key serves for both doors. 
J. D. took jealous care of his key. Which was 
unlike him. True, he only got it through 
the good offices of Mr. Grant, that gentleman 
being an old friend of the farmer’s. J. D. 
never lent his key. It had in his bedroom a 
special place, and no one in the house dared 
lay a finger on it. Well, that key was missing. 

6. The card of the elderly female visitor 
was looked for in vain. 

7. A large-sized, almost new gentleman’s 
umbrella which had been in the hall was gone. 

8. The letter Peggy Grove had noticed on 
the secretaire, written, fastened up and ad¬ 
dressed by J. D. but not stamped—that letter 
—never turned up. 


Chapter V 


P INNEY had caught himself napping. 

Only just in time he brisked up. For 
Demmean abruptly turned round to him. 
“I’ve been thinking of my poor brother,” he 
said. “What is your opinion? Did you agree 
with the coroner’s jury? Suicide. Do you 
think it was that?” 

“I do,” said Pinney. Ned Demmean looked 
straight at him. 

“And I’m as sure as I am of seeing you 
sitting there,” he said, “that Julian was mur¬ 
dered” 

He sank his voice on the word. Yet it 
seemed to the doctor as if he had shouted it. 

“The whole thing was thoroughly gone into 
at the inquest,” he remarked after the lapse of 
perhaps two minutes. 

“I tell you. No. The jury were hypnotized 
by young Ransom’s twaddle. Made up their 
minds on that.” 


63 


6 \ The Shot 

“I was there you know. I think Ransom 
was speaking the truth. What object could 
he have in doing anything else? He is a heavy 
loser by your brother’s death.” 

“Oh, I don’t mean that. But I know the 
fellow. Vain as a peacock. His own evidence 
was safe to swell in his mind. It gave him such 
importance! Look here!—This sentimentaliz¬ 
ing over a dead mole. This fuss about an 
incident in an old play. Julian made a remark 
or two no doubt. But if Ransom didn’t exag¬ 
gerate erroneously-” Ned paused; excited; 

“By the Lord, doctor,” he ended on a lower 
note, “I know he did. I feel he did.” 

“That was not my impression. He seemed 
to me to give his evidence very carefully. 
Wasn’t there one little bit of disingenuousness 
though? I’ve been told he was your brother’s 
valet. He described himself as travelling sec¬ 
retary.” 

“He was never Julian’s valet,” decided Ned. 
“My grandmother thought no end of the fam¬ 
ily butler, the old Ransom—he married late; 
he was seventy when Maurice and Julian and 
myself were eighteen. He retired at seventy, 
and he and Maurice lived together in a pretty 


The Shot 65 

cottage on the estate. Maurice worked with 
my grandmother’s old bailiff. The bailiff died, 
and the old lady, quite sick at the idea of a 
new man, managed with Maurice after that. 
Then Julian took several runs abroad in the 
Oxford vacations and Maurice went with him. 
It was inconvenient, but my grandmother 
never refused Julian anything. He certainly 
didn’t go as a valet. They were in rough 
parts mostly where two men would be just 
two men. I’m not particularly wrapt up in 
young Ransom, but I think travelling secre¬ 
tary was an allowable flourish.” 

Ned would always take any amount of 
trouble in order to be fair. He now returned 
to his main subject. “Then the housekeeper,” 
he said. “Mrs. Grove. She’s here with me 
now. What is her chatter worth?” 

“Oh,” said Pinney, smiling slightly, “I give 
you Mrs. Grove. If a man mayn’t lean for¬ 
ward on his desk for a moment! However, I 
assure you, Ned, the whole of the evidence 
was considered with all possible care, and I 
only know one man who—privately, to me 
afterwards—found fault with the verdict*” 

“What man?” 


66 The Shot 

“Gaywood, the detective-inspector at Kaye.' 5 

“I must see him.” Ned gave a start as if 
about to quit his chair. 

“He’s at Hastings,” said Pinney. “Recruit¬ 
ing. Been ill. He’ll be back in three weeks.” 

Pinney’s pipe had gone out. He now re¬ 
lighted it. A servant came in with a basket 
of fresh logs, and threw some on the fire. Pin¬ 
ney recognized Jacob Hinchley, the man 
Julian Demmean had had to wait on him. His 
parents were Daunt people, the doctor knew 
him well. Four or five and thirty. A flat 
figure, loosely joined together. A faded 
freckled face; very white teeth; the two upper 
front ones conspicuously longer than the rest. 
When he had left the room Pinney drew his 
chair nearer to Demmean’s. 

“There was a certain amount of money 
lying about, you know,” he said, “no great 
sum, but easy to get at. Nothing was touched. 
If the crime you visualize was committed by 
an armed thief, he must obviously have 
thought he heard some one coming, and 
escaped through the window of the upper 
room. But what professional thief would 
break in the middle of the morning into a house 


The Shot 67 

like this—so far from lonely—tenanted by an 
active young man with servants—on the chance 
of picking up something worth while? Rob¬ 
bery as a motive is only thinkable on the part 
of some one already on the premises. Hinch- 
ley, who, I see, you have here, is frightened 
of pistols. Which used to amuse your brother. 
Besides he was at the sale at Cotterell from 
start to finish. Didn’t leave till after the 
catastrophe. Robert Smith, the jobbing gar¬ 
dener, is seventy. A fossil. The boy who 
looked after the motor had gone to a sister’s 
wedding. Then- 

Demmean stopped him. 

“I wasn’t thinking of any such vulgar 
crime,” he said. “If it was done the motive 
was special —passional. I say if—but I 
haven’t a moment’s doubt on the point. Why 
do you suppose I’m here in this accursed spot 
which, bar your society, hasn’t a single attrac¬ 
tion for me? I should have made some ar¬ 
rangements about the house with Mr. Grant, 
and never come near it; but it’s the right centre, 
you see, for me to work from. That’s all I 
think about.” 



68 


The Shot 

“Oh!” mused Pinney. “You’re here in the 
character of a detective.” 

“Stuff.” Ned wasn’t best pleased. “I sim¬ 
ply want to clear my brother’s memory,” he 
said. “Prove he didn’t spend his last moments 
jumping about with a pistol like one of these 
beastly degenerates, first monkeying with a 
picture, then-” 

“Supposing he did ” said Pinney firmly, 
“you take a wrong tone. It would mean just 
brain trouble. Nothing shameful.” 

“There’s no brain trouble in our family.” 
Ned leaned forward. From the kindling wood 
a flame shot up, bringing the angles and hol¬ 
lows of his face into sharp relief. There was 
a short silence. Then he said, “I grant you, 
poor Julian was no bad hand at getting into 
scrapes. A charming fellow—a charming 
nature”— (Pinney nodded assent) —“but weak 
on one point. A dangler after women. I was 
jolly glad to hear of his engagement. I 
thought a nice girl he was seriously fond of 
would be the making of him.” (Pinney nodded 
again.) “Well, since the damned war,” Ned 
went on, “relations between men and women 



The Shot 69 

have been rather particularly-” He 

waited for a word. 

“Kaleidoscopic,” suggested the doctor. 

“Yes. My notion is that Julian paid with 
his life for some such folly. I seem to see the 
root of the event back in his past—his recent 
past. He got his discharge twenty months 
ago. Lived in town. Plenty might happen. 
Luckily he had the same servant with him all 
the while—a sergeant, slightly invalided. 
Julian was always free with servants. Too 
free. At least for my taste. He dismissed 
this fellow, I don’t know why, before coming 
to settle at Daunt. His name is Trair. He’s 
with relations in Jersey now, I’ve ascertained 
that; he’ll be in London in November. Then 
I must get hold of him. He’ll have something 
to say about Julian’s surroundings. May be 
a help.” 

Suddenly Ned pushed his chair back; he 
stood up. “A detective!” he said. He had 
a bitter little laugh. “I’ve no genius in that 
direction. But I can see out of my eyes. I 
don’t mind what I spend either in time or 
money, and I’ve hope; it’s borne in on my mind 
that I shall succeed. Trace the individual who 



70 The Shot 

was let in on the morning of the 15th of April, 
by Julian himself; the man who either em¬ 
ployed the elderly woman visitor as a spy 
or gave her hush-money after the fact of which 
she was somehow accidentally a witness; the 
assassin who was clever enough to arrange 
Julian’s revolver from off the secretaire so as 
to indicate suicide-” 

“And stupid enough to leave his own 
behind?” Pinney broke in. 

“Possibly.” 

“What about the shot at the picture?” 

“Say the interview opens quite amicably. 
The conversation turns on pistol-shooting. 
Julian, like the baby he was, is tempted to 
show his skill by aiming at the eyes in the 
Duke’s portrait, which he disliked. The other 
man takes out his own revolver while my 
brother’s back is to him, and as he turns shoots 
him dead.” 

“I didn’t know you had so much imagina¬ 
tion,” commented Pinney. 

Ned didn’t appear to hear. 

“The failure of the woman caller to come 
forward,” Pinney remarked, “isn’t as odd as 
you think it. She’s probably single. You 



The Shot 71 

don’t know elderly single women as I do. Quite 
often their bugbear is—getting mixed up in 
anything. So they put it. The more you 
advertised for a person like that, the deeper 
she’d burrow.” 

Ned’s hands were in his trouser pockets; 
his chin stuck out. 

“But the key, and the unstamped letter 
Peggy Grove saw, and the visiting card and 
the umbrella disappeared too,” he said. “Each 
of these things is a trifle in itself. Taken to¬ 
gether with the invisibility of the elderly 
woman they form a chain . A chain which 
has in it the making of a clue. A clue to the 
identity of the unknown guilty agent on the 
scene.” 

“Well,” said the doctor, “a few minutes back 
you gave the reins to your fancy. Now let me 
have a try. I presume the elderly lady was an 
acquaintance of your brother’s. Otherwise, 
when he saw her card, he’d hardly have said 
at once, ‘Show her in.’ When she is leaving 
he describes the short cut through the lambing- 
fields to the road leading to Daunt station and 
lends her his key. The weather looks threaten¬ 
ing. He lends his umbrella too. Stupidly 


72 The Shot 

frightened, as I’ve pictured her, afterwards, 
she returns neither. That leaves only the letter 
as to which, after all, Peggy Grove may have 
made a mistake. Or did Julian write it— 
change his mind—throw it in the fire? The 
card would most probably be burnt as soon 
as read. As for the magnolia. Detective In¬ 
spector Gaywood was certain it had been used 
as a ladder, but Grant’s gardener, who ought 
to know, insisted that in that case, the tree 
would have suffered a lot more—he said it was 
simply a bit spoilt by the storm. So the mag¬ 
nolia tells neither way.” 

“You forget that Julian never parted with 
the key.” 

Pinney was silent a moment. Then he said 
very gently, “But when a man is about to end 
his days he doesn’t mind what he parts with.” 

Ned had a movement as if someone had hit 
him. 

“And tell me,” Pinney went on, “why were 
errands invented for the servants unless Julian 
wanted privacy for the doing of that which 
he had determined should be done? Hinchley 
said at the inquest garden implements weren’t 
needed, and plenty of the tobacco Peggy 


The Shot 73 

Grove went to Kaye to buy was found amongst 
Julian’s things.” 

“What are you talking about?” growled 
Ned. “If he wanted privacy he’d only got to 
lock the study door.” 

Pinney glanced up at him. Ned Demmean 
has had fever, said the doctor to himself. It’s 
hanging about him still, and he has brooded 
over this idea till it has become an obsession. 

He decided to argue the point no further; 
he changed his ground. 

“I brought Emmy Busshe into the world,” 
he said, “and I’m very fond of her. I wish 
for her sake you could prove yourself right. 
It would take the poison out of her wound 
if she didn’t have to think that on the eve of 
marriage with her Julian had made away with 
himself.” 

“Well; in a month or less,” said Ned with 
his heated eyes fixed before him, “I shall get 
to work. I’m only waiting for Trair. Then 
there’s this other man—the police-officer you 
spoke of—I shall find him a very interesting 
acquaintance. And while I rest on my oars I’m 
soaking in the atmosphere that was Julian’s; 
by no means wasting time. That was why I 


74 The Shot 

engaged Hinchley, who’s next door to an idiot. 
Julian liked stupid people about him. I don’t 
share the taste. He said they rested his mind. 
I haven’t mind enough to need resting, I sup¬ 
pose.” He walked to the end of the room and 
returned. “About my cousin, Emily Busshe,” 
he said. “Julian wrote that her people weren’t 
well off. Look here, doctor! He died intes¬ 
tate. Meant to make a will on his wedding- 
day, no doubt. That’s one of the difficulties 
in the suicide solution of the mystery. Would 
he have left the girl whose life he was wreck¬ 
ing without a penny?” 

“That letter—his last letter to you—the one 
Peggy Grove posted,” said Pinney, “it’s fail¬ 
ing to reach you was a great misfortune— 
common enough—out of twenty letters my 
dear wife wrote me while I was in Mespot I 
only got fourteen. But this was particularly 
bad luck. It might have cleared up much. 
Perhaps he recommended Emmy to your— 
hm!—consideration!” 

“I’ll never get it now. I’ve made myself 
a byword with the Post Office authorities—no 
results. But I don’t need to be told that Emily 
Busshe ought to have something. It’s so 


The Shot 75 

clear. Will they make any difficulty, d’you 
think?” 

“Speak to Grant.” 

“Not to the father?” 

“Emmy may be said to have two fathers 
and Busshe, the real one, is the sleeping part¬ 
ner in the concern. At the same time there’s 
a strangely strong tie between him and his 
child and in feature they’re extremely alike. 
For a week after the catastrophe Emmy lay 
motionless in her bed, refusing to eat. All 
that time Busshe fasted too. At the end of the 
week I told her. She said nothing, but in 
the afternoon she got up, dressed, came down 
and had tea with her father.” 

“Game!” 

“Wasn’t it?” Pinney’s eyes shone moist. 
“By the by, they don’t speak of it,” he said. 
“Julian’s name isn’t mentioned at Fir Bank. 
She said she’d get on best like that. Whether 

she’ll feel like seeing you-” 

“That’s of no consequence. It’s the money. 
She could get away—go abroad.” 

“Yes.” After a moment’s thought—“Busshe 
is a bundle of inconsequences,” Pinney re¬ 
marked. “You’d think he doesn’t know what 



76 The Shot 

money is. Yet he’s proud as the devil about 
taking any. If I were in your place I should 
begin by sounding Grant.” 

“What sort is he?” 

“A good sort.” 

“There’s an aunt, isn’t there?” 

“Oh yes. An excellent person. But not 
much head.” 

Ned had dropped back into his chair by this 
time. Legs out, eyes half closed. Pinney 
was turning the insides of his legs to the blaze, 
rubbing the heat in. “Queer how things come 
about,” he said. “It was Grant’s father intro¬ 
duced me here. In Daunt, I mean. I remem¬ 
ber his telling me he had thought of taking 
a house Epping Forest way, but his wife 
begged for the Thames. Well, when young 
Ransom bought that little house of his your 
brother good-naturedly came down to see his 
purchase. He knew there was a cousin of 
his father’s in the neighbourhood but didn’t 
propose to go near him. He did not know 
that the old medico you’d written to him 
about from Mespot lived at Daunt. But I’d 
been doctoring Ransom. He happened to 
mention me to your brother. Pinney? Hector 


The Shot 77 

Pinney? Off after me at once. He wanted 
to talk about you, you know. He was very 
fond of you. I walked back with him to young 
Ransom’s studio. Emmy Busshe and her aunt 
hove in sight. Julian was greatly struck with 
Emmy. I told him who she was and the 
minute they were introduced, So, as a mat¬ 
ter of fact, our John Grant’s mother laid the 
foundation for the cousins getting engaged 
when she had her way with her husband about 
the Thames. Queer.” 

“Yes, Julian was fond of me,” said Ned in a 
low voice. '“He was." 


Chapter VI 


E ARLY in the afternoon of the next day 
Ned went to see Maurice Ransom. Pin- 
ney had told him about the tinted photo-por¬ 
trait on porcelain. After Julian’s death it was 
sent back from Fir Bank. They were afraid 
to let Emmy see it. Ned wished to buy the 
portrait. 

A warm day. In the window-boxes of 
Maurice’s compact little red villa the cosy gay 
petunias are beginning to curl up. 

Mrs. Maurice herself came to the door. 
Pinney had mentioned that she was handsome. 
So far as he gave the matter a thought Ned 
expected to see flaunting good looks. 

Here she stands. Beautiful rather than 
handsome. The face is clear in outline under 
auburn hair about which Miss Watkyn is mis¬ 
taken; it waves of itself. The complexion has 
the china white and rose-leaf rose which some¬ 
times go with red in the hair. The well-cut 
78 


The Shot 79 

nose is almost straight with the forehead. Per¬ 
haps the mouth is a trifle wide and the lips 
are thinnish. But their colour is splendid and 
they part to show unexceptionable teeth. No, 
the mouth doesn’t spoil her; if the face, as a 
whole, has a fault it is in the expression. Coral 
Ransom’s blue eyes are cold. 

She had on a thin black dress very little cut 
down at the throat or up at the skirt-hem. 
Compared to the forms which were so liberally 
on show everywhere in 1920 she was nunlike. 
Yet the contours spoke. Exquisitely. 

For one instant Ned looked taken aback. 
Coral knew that look. She met it with one 
which was very aware but very calm. How¬ 
ever, her glance didn’t matter to Ned. His 
surprise had been admiring; that over, she 
wasn’t the sort of woman to appeal to him 
in any way whatever. 

Maurice had gone out. Mrs. Ransom ex¬ 
pected him back very shortly. Would Captain 
Demmean care to wait? Ned came in. He 
spoke of his brother’s portrait; and Coral took 
him to the studio. It was built out at the back 
of the house. 

In one corner of the long room, which was 


80 The Shot 

arranged with great taste, there stood on an 
easel a large picture with drapery thrown over 
it. Ned knew the moment he entered the room 
what it was. Coral took off the vapoury red 
veiling and then with consummate tact went 
to the other end of the room and stood blowing 
dust off the leaves of the tall flowering plants 
which were grouped there. 

It was three years since the brothers’ last 
meeting. Julian had come through the war 
with sufficient distinction and no great damage; 
only one notable wounding; in the shoulder. 
While he was convalescent at Nice Ned got a 
fortnight’s leave and came and spent it with 
him. 

There was the face; all Julian was in it; 
dazzle; dash; gaiety; elusiveness; something 
sad. 

Ned looked awhile; then turned towards 
Coral; she immediately came and joined him. 
Her movements were leisurely. Like her 
husband she lacked freedom—simplicity. But 
her abiding self-consciousness was of a differ¬ 
ent kind from his. Not the least underbred. 

“It’s a wonderful likeness,” said Ned s 

“I think so,” she said. 


8i 


The Shot 

“You knew my brother, I suppose.” 

“Oh yes. But only for a month. Until 
a month before the fifteenth of April I was 
away nursing my mother in a long, terrible 
illness. I returned home in the middle of 
March.” 

Instead of telling him that her mother had 
died she looked down at her black dress and 
black silk stockings and black-buckled shoes. 
Then she went on. “Your brother was very 
artistic,” she remarked. 

“Always taking something up.” 

“He took photography up.” 

“That brought him here.” 

“Yes- He did some really good views in 

the Park. Have you seen them at Como?” 

“Not yet. I haven’t had time.” 

After this they stood silent till Ned be¬ 
thought himself of asking whether Mrs. Ran¬ 
som was interested in her husband’s work. 

“Oh yes. I help him a lot.” 

“He’s fortunate,” said Ned politely. 

She smiled; a faint becoming smile. She 
glanced through the window. “Here he 
comes,” she said. “I’ll tell him you’re here.” 



82 The Shot 

She withdrew and almost directly Maurice 
came in by a different door. 

Even in childish days, when Maurice Ran¬ 
som was valuable in games calling for three, 
Ned had never been keen on him. He had de¬ 
spised Maurice for his liability to funk; while 
Julian enjoyed the sense of superiority accru¬ 
ing to himself therefrom. Then Ned was both¬ 
ered by Maurice’s devotion to Julian who, co¬ 
quettish as a girl, often played on the jealousy 
of his twin. 

Later Ned didn’t trouble his head much 
about the florid, adaptable, aspiring offspring 
of his grandmother’s old butler. But when he 
did think of him it was with a cool feeling, to 
say the least of it. 

He now saw at a glance that Maurice was 
improved. Less high in colour; slimmer; 
quieter in his dress. He had had a trick of imi¬ 
tating Julian’s ways and manners which used 
to exasperate Ned. However, the image of 
Julian which came with Maurice’s rushing walk 
up the studio (only in Julian that hasty effect 
was grace itself, in Maurice not)—didn’t ex¬ 
asperate the surviving twin. He only felt a 
dreary pang. 


The Shot 83 

“Captain Demmean!” Maurice exclaimed. 
They shook hands. Ned praised the portrait. 
Maurice at once asked him to accept it. But 
Ned insisted on paying. “Have you a few min¬ 
utes ?” he enquired, when that business was 
done. 

“Yes,” Maurice replied. “It’s early for 
chance sitters and I haven’t an appointment 
this afternoon before 8.30.” 

They sat down on a sofa, and Ned told Mau¬ 
rice that he wanted to carry out what he was 
sure would have been his brother’s wish; he 
contemplated placing the three hundred 
pounds Julian was to have lent him to Maurice 
Ransom’s account—at what bank, please? Not 
as a loan but a souvenir. 

Maurice started away from the proposition. 
Ned thought his behaviour odd. He was at 
once upset and guarded. “No, Captain Dem¬ 
mean. It’s a generous idea on your part, 
but-” 

“Not generous. Just.” 

“Not at all. Kindly say no more about it.” 

“Borrow it then, as you meant to do.” 

“No, thank you. Don’t misunderstand me. 
I’m obliged, I’m sure”—Maurice fiddled sav- 



84 The Shot 

agely with his watch-strap—“but ” Sud¬ 
denly he seemed to have an inspiration. “The 
fact is. Captain Demmean,” he said in an easier 
tone, “the need is past.” 

“How’s that, if I may ask?” 

“Certainly. Early in the year I felt disap¬ 
pointed in my opening here. I thought of mov¬ 
ing. That would have been expensive. But 
during the summer things have looked up. I’m 
getting to be known. And my wife seems to 
like the place. She’s acquainted with some of 
the principal ladies in Daunt who are interested 
in High Church work. They work under Mr. 
Sim, the celibate vicar of All Saints’. He ex¬ 
cites great enthusiasm. My wife’s High. Ex¬ 
ceedingly High.” 

“And are you exceedingly High?” Ned en¬ 
quired. 

“It’s a bit different with us men, isn’t it?” 
said Maurice in modest accents. “But I have 
a great respect for Mr. Sim.” 

Ned had made up his mind not to talk freely 
to Maurice about Julian. He didn’t think 
Maurice could give him anything. Already 
at the inquest he had said rather more than 
the truth (such was Ned’s fixed opinion) and 



The Shot 85 

what would be the use of letting him say it, 
perhaps with fresh additions, over again? 

He had expected to have some difficulty in 
choking Maurice off, for the young man was a 
talker. Lo, the reverse was the case. Maurice 
seemed even more determined not to speak on 
the subject of his lost friend, patron and para¬ 
gon’s end than Ned was not to hear about it. 
It wasn’t from excess of feeling, either; no, not 
that. Something there was in his mind he 
didn’t want Julian Demmean’s brother to get 
at. Ned felt puzzled. 

But it was close on half-past three. Ned 
jumped up. “I’m glad you’re so flourishing,” 
he said. “If you won’t take the money you 
won’t. But if later—well—it’ll always be 
ready for you if you want it, you know.” 

Maurice shook his head. 

Coming back from seeing his visitor out he 
met his wife in the pigmy entrance hall. 

“Did you answer the door to Captain Dem- 
mean?” he said. 

“Yes.” 

“What’s the use of keeping a servant at 
forty pounds a year if you’re to let yourself 
down like that?” 


86 


The Shot 

“Hilda was dressing,” said Coral indiffer¬ 
ently. “And how behind you are! Now a 
Duchess can open her own door to a visitor if 
she wants to. Nobody thinks anything of any¬ 
thing.” 

Thus summarizing post-war mental chaos, 
she moved towards the studio. 

“Has Hilda done dressing?” said Maurice 
quite meekly. 

“Ages ago.” 

The sitter who had made an appointment 
rang. 


Chapter VII 


N ED DEMMEAN went on to Fir Bank. 

Whether or no Grant was to act as his 
adviser and ambassador in the affair of the 
money he wished poor Julian’s fiancee to have 
as if by bequest—it seemed to Francis Busshe’s 
cousin right that he himself should call. 

Apparently the young maid (Ada Cramp 
had left) who came to the door didn’t think 
it right. When he asked for Mr. Busshe, men¬ 
tioning his own name, her bead eyes and button 
mouth threatened to burst their boundaries. 
Desperate inaction only lasted a few seconds, 
however; then she took the visitor up a narrow 
winding old staircase, opened a door, said, 
“Captain Demmean to see Mr. Busshe,” and 
ran away. 

The room was pleasant with its old dim- 
coloured furniture and two bow-windows fram¬ 
ing the fading green of trees. Miss Watkyn 
rose from a settee. Ned remembered Pinney’s 
87 


88 The Shot 

saying that she hadn’t much head. To the out¬ 
ward view she had plenty; he saw a large head, 
a large face, a large bunch of grey hair, large 
body and limbs, large skirts, a large orange 
jumper which she was knitting. The assort¬ 
ment gasped at him disconcertingly. He didn’t 
know her name. 

“I thought—I wanted to come-” he said 

not without awkwardness. “In fact, I should 
be glad to speak to Mr. Busshe. I’m at Como 
for a time.” 

Miss Watkyn dropped her work and he 
picked it up. “Oh yes,” she said, as if the inci¬ 
dent freed her tongue. “Of course we knew 
you were expected at Como. How do you like 
the house? Frank—your cousin—Mr. Busshe 
—takes his rest at this time, but I daresay ” 

“No, don’t disturb him. I’ll call another day. 
What time would suit him?” 

The door-handle turned. Miss Watkyn 
looked really frightened. “Don’t mention your 
brother to Emmy,” she whispered. 

Emmy entered the room. One of the nicest 
things in it was an old-fashioned French 
screen. This was placed so as to keep off the 
draught from the door to the further window 




The Shot 89 

in which Miss Watkyn had been sitting. So, 
as Emmy very slowly advanced towards the 
open baby grand piano, which was opposite 
the door, she became visible to Ned and the 
aunt half a minute before she herself could see 
that anyone was in the room. And just at that 
half minute she abruptly stood still. As if 
something flashed into her mind. 

What is Emmy like now? Very thin; very 
pale; with indescribable shadow-slopes in her 
hollo wed-out young face; yet strange to say 
she looks younger; the flowering of the woman 
in her has been checked; perhaps, too, it is be¬ 
cause the figure is so straight, so extra slight. 
The eyes, too large in the face lessened in size, 
are as bright as if the whole life centered there; 
the lips have only a faint mauve-rose tint. 

As she came to a stand her head was slightly 
drawn back, her arms hung down. 

Ned looked at her. The burning eyes, the 
decided features, especially the prominent 
mouth—fixed; the colourlessness, the wasting; 
the shadow-lines, the deep, uncomplaining, 
hopeless look struck on him strongly. No 
longer did the aunt’s agitation appear absurd. 
He himself felt as nervous as in a fight—just 


90 The Shot 

before the action begins. (Once it began he 
was all right.) What would happen? Would 
she abominate seeing him? Would it do her 
any harm? 

That pausing figure! That petrified yet all 
too speaking visage! Poor child, poor child. 

His eyes, travelling down from her face, 
were caught by a small foot with a haughtily 
arched instep. For some mysterious reason it 
was of all female charms the one which ap¬ 
pealed to him most. Oh, mixed man! The swell 
of pity within him grew fierce—fervent; 
changed, ceased to be pity, he fell over head 
and ears in love with his cousin. 

The girl turned with a sharp movement away 
from the piano. At once she caught sight of 
her aunt and the stranger. She pulled at the 
loose band of her dress as if touching a spring 
that kept her going; and she advanced. 

“Captain Demmean to see your father, 
dear,” said Miss Watkyn, smooth and shaky. 
“I was just saying it’s his rest hour.” 

The muscles of Emmy’s mouth contracted. 
She turned the twitch into a smile. Very dif¬ 
ferent it was from her old smiles. Quietly she 


The Shot 91 

shook hands with Ned. “I don’t want your 
father to be disturbed,” he muttered. 

Then John Grant walked in. Ned saw at 
once what a relief his appearance on the scene 
was both to aunt and niece. They ceased to 
feel any responsibility. Miss Watkyn ex¬ 
plained the situation. Grant pooh-poohed the 
idea that this was with Francis Busshe an in¬ 
violable hour. “He doesn’t like callers ever,” 
he remarked to Demmean. “So he works all 
the morning, rests and walks in the afternoon, 
works again till dinner. Very simple, isn’t it? 
I’ve just been with him. He’ll see you, I’m 
sure. I’ll fetch him.” 

If Coral Ransom had been something of a 
surprise to Ned, Grant was a bigger one. He 
had imagined a good-natured looking chap 
more than a bit run to seed; fattish; fidgetty; 
he thought this was the sort who would spend 
half his time superintending another man’s 
family affairs. 

Greatly enlightened, he saw the tall muscu¬ 
lar figure with its marked uprightness and un¬ 
mistakable power; the keen, sagacious, master¬ 
ful face; even the correct clothes, the well- 


92 The Shot 

groomed look of the man helped in the unex¬ 
pectedness of the impression. 

Ned felt also that Grant for his part gave 
him an uncommonly searching glance. Sum¬ 
ming me up, are you, old fellow?—he said to 
himself. Well, the Lord be with you. 

However, nothing could be more polite than 
Grant’s behaviour; he left the room and two 
minutes later Francis Busshe appeared, in his 
friend’s keeping, as it were. He had his spec¬ 
tacles in his left hand and seemed not quite 
sure of anything; but the fact that he desired 
to give Edward Demmean a proper reception 
came to light somehow. 

Grant directed rather than led the conver¬ 
sation; he didn’t say much. Ned found him¬ 
self talking at length about his voyage over, 
which had been perfectly uninteresting. That 
didn’t signify. He seemed to be admitted as 
one of the family circle; Busshe, in an arm¬ 
chair, sat looking towards him though not at 
him; Emmy, beside her father, could be well 
seen; and Ned observed that she looked differ¬ 
ent now. She was acting the part of a young 
woman who has nothing wrong with her. 

To make the first visit a long one would oh- 


The Shot 93 

viously be a mistake. In a quarter of an hour 
he got up to go. How pleased Busshe was! 
He had such a bright smile it made him look 
inspired. “Come again,” he said. “Come, any 
evening . Whenever you like, in the evening . 
Remember you’re a relation—in the evening.” 

Then he opened the door hardly at all, 
squeezed through the slit which was so narrow 
that it seemed a feat—though there was noth¬ 
ing of him—and was gone. 

Ned addressed Miss Watkyn. 

“Shall I look in some evening?” he said boy¬ 
ishly. 

“Oh—of course-” she said, in wavering 

haste. 

Ned glanced at Emmy. Their eyes met, for 
hers had been fixed on him. She looked away 
instantly and he could see her chest give a 
quick heave. 

“It’ll over-excite him, Aunt Benny,” she 
said hastily. A momentary turn towards Ned. 
“Let me tell you. Dad plays chess with Mr. 
Grant when he’s here; when he isn’t Aunt 
Benny gets out. Go Bang and they go bang 
till they stop. Or else I help him with Pa¬ 
tience. We can’t play a game because he hates 



94 The Shot 

himself to lose and hates me to lose too. So 
he’d get no fun that way. Are you a chess¬ 
player? They’re precious.” 

She was standing with a hand on the back 
of the chair her father had vacated. Her man¬ 
ner had a curious touch of defiance. Ned said, 
unfortunately he only knew the moves. 

“Well, that’s how we all begin,” said Grant, 
who was a famous hand, and while letting 
Busshe win four times out of six always con¬ 
trived to give him a good game. 

Ned made his adieux. Grant saw him down¬ 
stairs. 

Out in the street again, the young man stood 
still a minute. He looked about him. The 
grey old queer, congested-looking front of the 
Fir Bank house; the long All Saints’ Alley op¬ 
posite, showing on one side the allotments, their 
early autumn overgrowth scarcely yet touched 
by decay; jungles of the tall green-flaring, 
drop leafed Jerusalem artichokes, heavy gold 
of sunflowers up in air; the main road as if 
blinded by the afternoon sun, but shade lay on 
that quiet branch of it which terminated at two 
gates, a shut one, the vicarage garden gate, an 
open one leading to the churchyard; on all this 


The Shot 95 

and on the river Ned turned his back. He 
walked past the Wesleyan Chapel and the boat¬ 
yard; the Dangerous Corner signal-board, so 
high and fierce, brought him to the Roebuck 
Hotel and to Maurice Ransom’s red villa with 
the petunias going off in the window-boxes; he 
crossed at the Triangle and saw people waiting 
for a tram under the wall of his own grounds. 

He was thinking—I summoned Pinney to 
dine with me as if I was a Sultan. Lost my 
manners in Mespot. I’ll atone. He’s a mar¬ 
ried man. I’ll go this very minute and call on 
his wife. Who will perhaps mention Emmy 
Busshe. 

Pinney’s house was on the high-road; twenty 
minutes’ walk from Como. As Ned got there 
the doctor’s little car spun up. He jumped out 
and seized Ned by the arm. “Come in and have 
a cup of tea.” 

Mrs. Pinney was fifty-five. She was pretty 
still. Inclined to be stout. Motherly, though 
she had never had a child. She received Ned 
like a son, insisted that he had saved her Hec¬ 
tor’s life out in Mespot (“no, no, Mrs. Pinney, 
he saved mine”), patted a chair close to her 


96 The Shot 

own invitingly, emptied the cream jug into 
the visitor’s tea. 

“And what have you been doing with your¬ 
self?” she enquired. 

Ned felt absolutely at home with Mrs. Pin- 
ney. 

“I’ve just called on my cousin at Fir Bank,” 
he said. 

“Did you see Emmy?” 

“Yes.” 

“The darling’s a wreck, you know. She was 
the brightest, most fascinating thing. Wasn’t 
she, Hector?” 

Pinney nodded. 

“She looks delicate,” muttered Ned. 

Mrs. Pinney’s hands went up. 

“Hector’s dreadfully anxious about her.” 

Ned’s heels felt cold. 

“Chatterbox!” shouted the doctor across the 
saucerful of tea at his mouth. 

He gulped the saucer dry, put it down and 
said, turning to Ned, “I no longer fear for life 
or reason. But—well, Emmy’s your cousin. 
I’ll tell you what I think. In her determina¬ 
tion to live the misery down she’s overdoing it. 
Always at something. Grant is teaching her 


The Shot 97 

Italian, they’re reading Dante, who. I’ve been 
told, is a tiring author. Then she has in needy 
girls wanting to learn the piano. Coaxes 
Busshe to dictate to her. Walks farther and 
faster than she used. Gives herself no respite. 
And it’s not in her nature.” 

“No, that it isn’t,” testified Eve Pinney. 

Ned sat catching eagerly at details which 
helped him to a clearer image of Emmy. The 
Emmy who a little earlier in the day he had 
thought of with good-natured pity—just that. 

For a minute or two no one spoke. The 
doctor seemed in a dream. Suddenly he 
glanced up. “Oh dear, don’t let’s grizzle,” he 
said almost comically. “Time. Time. Emmy’s 
under twenty. Something happy’s bound to 
turn up for her.” 

“Who else did you see?” Mrs. Pinney in¬ 
quired of Ned. 

“Everybody, including Mr. Grant. Has he 
nothing to do but run Fir Bank?” 

“Oh dear, yes,” Mrs. Pinney protested. 
“He’s a splendid musician, has an organ and 
plays too gloriously, his garden is the loveliest 
in Daunt and it’s all his own taste—he does 
astronomy—and since he came back from the 


98 The Shot 

war he’s consented to be a magistrate. He sits 
on the Bench at Kaye.” 

“A magistrate,” commented Ned. “He 
ought to make a first-rate one, I should say. 
Only they never are first-rate, are they?” 

This question wasn’t answered, for the door 
opened and a sallow, quiet-looking, clever¬ 
faced young woman was coming in when she 
saw Captain Demmean and would have with¬ 
drawn in a hurry, but Mrs. Pinney called out, 
“Are you ready for me, Bose?” 

“Yes, please.” 

“I’ll be with you in a minute.” The girl dis¬ 
appeared. “My dressmaker,” smiled Mrs. Pin¬ 
ney at Ned. 

“My wife’s a great dresser,” Pinney in¬ 
formed him. 

“He goes about looking like a dustman. Cap¬ 
tain Demmean. Somebody must be decent.” 

Ned leaned back in his chair. Pinney’s re¬ 
mark as to his certainty that all would sooner 
or later be well with Emmy again had done 
the young man good. He dared not own to 
himself how far his hopes for the future took 
him. Or rather how near—Emmy. But he 
had just now a very comfortable feeling, and 


The Shot 99 

he liked the jolly affection of the elderly pair. 
Mrs. Pinney went nodding and smiling out of 
the room. 

Pinney said, “Did you happen to notice 
that young person?” 

“A good sensible face.” 

“She’s the daughter of Leah Swanell. The 
old half-gipsy—you remember—she was called 
at the inquest—the old woman who on the 
morning of the fifteenth of April foretold that 
Emmy Busshe’s wedding wouldn’t come off.” 

“I remember,” said Ned. “You don’t think 
it was a case of genuine second-sight-” 

“Why not?” 

“It didn’t read like one.” 

“Oh, they could make nothing of her at the 
inquest. She pretended to be sillier than she 
is. But—I don’t know. Leah Swanell is a 
singular character.” 

“Anyhow, it doesn’t affect the main ques¬ 
tion,” said Ned. He was uninterested, there¬ 
fore. The subject dropped. 

Soon after Ned had left Fir Bank Grant 
and Emmy stood waiting in the upper porch 
for Busshe; they were going to walk in the 



100 


The Shot 

Park. Grant said in a low voice, “Did it worry 
you, seeing Edward Demmean?” 

“No,” she said, after a moment’s hesitation. 
“There’s no likeness.” 

“No. Except the hair and ears. But if 
there was! My life’s a dream. Does it matter 
what one dreams?” 

Then after all, Emmy could speak of her 
loss? Yes. When she was alone with Grant. 


Chapter V 111 


VE at first sight, on one side at any; 



JLJ rate, is a common thing. Romantic as 
are most common things, when you come to 
think about them; but there it is—common. 

William Cohbett, a hard-headed politician, 
agriculturist and newspaper man, hadn’t been 
an hour in the same room with the young girl 
who was his fate, when he no more had a 
thought of her ever marrying anyone but him¬ 
self than he had a thought of her being trans¬ 
formed into a chest of drawers. So he tells us. 

And I knew a young scientist who, going 
out with an elderly scientist, waited at the door 
of the schoolroom while the elder man looked 
in to nod a good-bye to his daughter. The girl 
of sixteen with a pigtail was putting her les¬ 
son-books away on a high shelf. She glanced 
round and lo, the young scientist was done in. 
Eight years later he married the girl, though 
she had started her career by getting engaged 
to some one else. 


IOI 


102 The Shot 

But to Ned Demmean his own seizure 
seemed miraculous. He had had experiences 
with virtuous but flirtatious matrons, girls out 
to wed, and the third, the new species which 
without being avowedly commercial simply 
asks to be picked up. Nobody ever really got 
him. As soon as he ceased to be very young 
he sheered off from it all; or, as he himself 
would have said, “didn’t bother.” 

Now in the study at Como he sat leaning 
forward, with his head between his hands, 
bothering considerably. 

He reflected that a bereaved woman often 
marries a near relation or the closest friend of 
her dead. 

The morbid atmosphere Emmy was living 
in. To tempt her out of it. (Her eyes! Her 
soul! Her feet!) This silence she insisted on. 
As soon as he knew her well enough he would 
speak. Speak of Julian. The natural and 
therefore the best course. She had tied her¬ 
self up, not knowing what she was doing. He 
would cut the cords. (Her eyes! Her soul! 
Her feet!) 

Grant. Hm! He had been very civil. A 
devilish deal too civil. You’d think he was 


The Shot 103 

master at Fir Bank. Well, but wasn’t he? 
Julian in his letters spoke warmly of John 
Grant. Ned felt as if behind his civility, so to 
speak, the man was overbearing—supercilious. 
What did it matter? Why think about him at 
all? They were reading Dante, were they? 
Ned knew nothing of Dante. He looked 
round him. 

The so-called study was much as it had been 
in the Contessa’s time except that paper and 
paint were less light. It had not come alto¬ 
gether easy to Ned to establish himself here; 
but he had strong on him the fancy he spoke 
of to Pinney; he wanted to live just as his 
brother had lived. 

One side of the room was lined with book¬ 
shelves. The door at the foot of the little stair¬ 
case leading to the upper room didn’t show; it 
was contrived so as to form in appearance part 
of the shelves. 

The handsome secretaire stood nearly in the 
centre of the room. There was an upright 
piano away from the wall to one side of the 
French window. On the other side used to 
hang the large engraving from Sir Thomas 
Lawrence’s portrait of the Duke of Welling- 


104 The Shot 

ton, which on the morning of the fifteenth of 
April had had a bullet sent through the upper 
part of the face. An oil painting of the same 
size, a landscape subject done by an amateur, 
now occupied its place. Then there was an in¬ 
valid’s lounge-chair which, though he never 
ailed anything, had been Julian’s delight. 
Here was Ned perched as it were, unappre- 
ciatingly, on the edge of it. 

It was getting dusk. Hinchley came in. 
Not bad to see somebody’s face, though it was 
only Hinchley’s. Pallid and freckled, with 
reddish eyes, and those obtrusive upper teeth, 
he was certainly rather remarkably ugly. He 
looked resigned and a trifle timid. 

“Shall I shut up, sir?” 

“Oh, yes!” The electric light popped on 
and Hinchley laid a newspaper on the little 
round table near the fireplace. “What’s that?” 

“Kaye and Daunt Times , sir.” 

“Oh, local.” Ned’s tone was disparaging. 

“Mr. Demmean always took it,” said 
Hinchley plaintively, “and”—cheering up— 
“there’ve been two burglaries at Kaye this 
week.” 


Toss it over.” 


The Shot 105 

Hinchley took himself off. Ned went and 
surveyed the bookshelves. Dante was well 
represented. Two Italian editions and an 
English translation. Cary's. Ned sat down 
and opened the volume. When he was at Fir 
Bank he might be glad to be able to talk about 
Dante. But he was unable to fix his atten¬ 
tion. Tried the burglaries and found himself 
wondering whether Emmy Busshe liked 
motoring. 

The door of the room slowly opened as if of 
itself. No one was to be seen. Ned knew the 
meaning of this phenomenon. Mrs. Grove had 
been a parlour-maid in what is called good 
service. Bursting in was her bugbear. She 
hardly knew how to be gradual enough. As 
soon as the door had been wide open for a few 
seconds she materialized, so to speak. Yes. 
Here she was in her black afternoon gown. 
Her comely face was solemn. “I beg pardon 
for disturbing you, sir.” 

“What is it?” 

“Hinchley thought the letter on the slab 
where your letters always are put, was so 
large you must have seen it, but as it hasn’t 


106 The Shot 

been opened I took the liberty to wonder if it 
had escaped your notice.” 

“I’ve seen no letter,” said Ned. He hadn’t 
glanced towards the slab on coming in. He 
was up from his seat, for he hated giving 
women trouble. Mrs. Grove, however, who 
was only forty-two, bounded to the slab in the 
hall. To avoid the absurdity of a race Ned 
stayed where he was. She came in, bearing 
a letter on a salver. 

A large official envelope. From the Post 
Office, Ned viewed it indifferently. Broke it. 

The letter from Julian which Peggy Grove 
(she was married now and gone to Australia) 
had posted on the fifteenth of April, stared 
him in the face. 

Julian had made an error in the direction 
and the letter had been a great traveller. The 
surviving twin waited a while before opening 
it. Seven minutes, to be exact. 

Dear old Ned j — 

Pour forth I must and I haven’t a soul but 
you, so here goes. I’m about to give you a 
surprise—a shock. But you must get over 
that feeling. 

My marriage to Emmy Busshe can’t come 


The Shot 107 

off. She’s charming; only when the moon 
rises the brightest star pales. My moon has 
risen. A woman with the face of Diana and 
the form of Venus. She’s married. You won’t 
approve, for you’re an old-fashioned old 
Puritan. What next? She’s Maurice Ran¬ 
som’s wife. 

I own I’m sorry for this. But what’s to be 
done? She married him in a moment of war 
stress. 

So look here. They are not happy. If I 
married Emmy, loving Coral (her name is 
Coral) we shouldn’t be happy. Four lives 
spoiled. For the sake of who or what? The 
devil is in me if I know. 

Don’t think I’ve not put up a fight. I stuck 
closer to Emmy than ever when first it came 
on. Corral is a religious woman. Calm, too. 
For what seemed a long time she was deaf to 
all I had to say. But like me, she’s had to give 
way. 

To describe her as a perfect lady would be 
absurd. She is so much more. When we are 
married. (Maurice will behave well, I’m sure), 
you must hold out your hand to my wife. You 
must . 


108 The Shot 

My tete-a-tetes with Coral have been few. 
She is the most reserved woman I’ve met. I 
have kissed her. That’s all. Not been kissed. 

Emmy will soon get over it. I can’t speak 
too admiringly of the dear. Why not have 
both? 

If only I were not a Western! But when 
it comes to choosing between the two- 

Maurice will find a nice girl with some 
money, and they’ll have four children. 

My soul is on fire. I understand Pyg¬ 
malion. Oh, the rapture of breathing life into 
marble! 

Now, Ned, remember we were what doctors 
call true twins. Don’t sulk. Don’t spoil my 
happiness. 

My love to you, old man. 

J. D. 

P.S.—We leave for Paris to-night. 

For many weeks Ned had been turning over 
in his mind the gloomy and, as it seemed to 
him, inexplicable circumstances of his brother’s 
end. He was, as we know, convinced that 
Julian had met his death at another man’s j 
hand. And he had expected the solution of 



The .Shot 109 

the mystery to be a strange one. But not so 
strange as this. Was it—could it be—the 
solution? 

On his first stupefaction followed a calm in 
which he seemed to think with peculiar quick¬ 
ness and clearness. As for the moral aspect 
of the affair he scarcely concerned himself with 
that. Julian had meant to do what did indeed 
seem to Ned a bad, base thing. But he was 
dead. We don’t judge the dead. 

Ned put himself in Maurice Ransom’s place. 
Suppose he had discovered the truth about his 
wife and Julian. Ned was certainly old-fash¬ 
ioned, and he felt that if he was married the 
idea of shooting any man who proposed to 
steal his wife would come very natural to him. 
Only (and unfortunately, he mused, duelling 
is extinct) in fair fight. If however Maurice 
had done the deed he did it as an assassin. And 
putting aside other considerations had Mau¬ 
rice spunk enough even for that? 

The cry that was heard, too! Did Maurice 
in cold blood conceive and carry out that de¬ 
tail? Counterfeit a shriek of startled horror 
ivith the man he had just killed lying at his 
feet? He had Jewish blood in him and Jews 


no 


The Shot 

can do extraordinary things, both good and 
evil. But Maurice. Of him was such cool¬ 
ness in crime thinkable? 

Or was it Julian who shrieked as he fell, con¬ 
scious for one moment that all he had grasped 
at was going from him? As this notion came 
up Ned felt in his heart a stab of bitter pain. 
But no. It is not when a man gets a bullet 
in his heart that he screams. 

He recalled his visit to Maurice’s studio, the 
odd, uneasy manner that had clung about him; 
he thought of the well-behaved, cold-looking 
yet somehow not innocent-looking, beautiful 
wife. In their comfortable little house, next 
the Roebuck Hotel, opposite Dangerous Cor¬ 
ner, were they living with this double secret 
between them? Each with so much to conceal 
from the world outside and ever conscious of 
the whole truth, when they were together. He 
could believe it of Coral. She had struck him 
as being an exceptional person. 

A ring at the hall-door. Hinchley ap¬ 
peared. “Mr. Ransom has brought round the 
picture, sir.” 

“Show him in.” 

For the second time we see Maurice enter a 


Ill 


The Shot 

room bearing his own camera study of Julian 
Demmean transferred to porcelain. 

He relieved himself of the portrait, laying 
it carefully on the side-table near the door; and 
hurried up the room. Julian’s rush sat better 
on him this time, it appeared more buoyant. 
Ned saw that either his mood had changed 
since their meeting in the afternoon or he was 
making a determined effort to appear cheerful. 

“I should have sent the lad I employ,” 
(some complacency here) “Captain Dem¬ 
mean,” he said, “but I had unexpected busi¬ 
ness rather late and by the time I’d done the 
rascal had slipped off. Can I advise you, as 
I’m here, about the placing of the portrait?” 

“Never mind about that,” said Ned. “Sit 
down. I was wishing to see you.” 

“Has anything unexpected occurred, Cap¬ 
tain Demmean?” said Maurice, with an altered 
face. He sat down. 

“Something unexpected has happened,” 
said Ned. He himself remained standing. 
“My brother’s letter—the letter he wrote to me 
on the fifteenth of April—the letter regarded 
as lost—I have it.” 

Maurice turned white, then red. He looked 


112 


The Shot 

miserable. Something hangdog undoubtedly 
in his aspect. But guilty—tragically guilty? 
No. 

The next moment was a nasty one for Ned. 
However he forged ahead. 

“Forgive me,” he said. “Did you ever sus¬ 
pect that my brother was fond of your wife?” 

“I never suspected it, Captain Demmean,” 
said Maurice, hastily. Yet he didn’t seem to 
be receiving information. He stole a cautious 
glance up at Ned. Who thereupon said with 
sudden roughness, “Well, it was so. They’d 
arranged to go off together. Now, what I 
have to point out to you is this. If you had 
any idea of the state of things between them 
the character you appeared in at the inquest 
is smashed up. You seem attached to your 
wife. In that case you were no longer my 
brother’s—hm—indebted friend. You had 
cause, to be his enemy.” 

Maurice bounded from his chair. “Good 
God, Captain Demmean,” he exclaimed, “you 
think I shot him. Oh, how little you under¬ 
stand! You think that. Oh no, no. I harm 
a hair of his head! Good God! You don’t 
understand. I love my wife—I do indeed— 


The Shot 113 

but Mr. Demmean was part of my life in a 
way she’ll never be—never. I can’t remem¬ 
ber a time when his distinguishing me as he 
did wasn’t my chief pride—my greatest joy. 
In everything I did and thought he seemed in 
the foreground, as it were. The world’s only 
half a world now he’s gone. How wonderfully 
bright he was—what a brightness came from 
him! Me! Besides, I told you I never sus¬ 
pected anything—not then. It wasn’t till a 
month after his death I came—in a most un¬ 
looked for way—not to suspect, but to know” 

There was no mistaking Maurice’s sincerity. 
His perspiring and trembling rather alarmed 
Ned; he remembered about the weakish heart. 

“I believe you,” he said quickly. “Don’t 
get so upset. Easy. Easy. Sit down here— 
the lounge chair. Lean back. No, sit up. 
You’re better sitting up. There. Brandy 
perhaps. I’ll ring.” 

“No, no,” Maurice protested. “I’m all 
right now. Don’t ring, Captain Demmean, on 
any account. Don’t have anyone in.” 

“I’ll fetch something.” 

“Quite unnecessary. Pray don’t. Oh, Cap¬ 
tain Demmean, these hands have no blood on 


114 The Shot 

them”—he looked at them; they were nice 
hands, with common, ugly nails anxiously 
cared for—“but I’ve been terribly placed.” 

“Yes.” 

Ned had been by the lounge-chair, helping 
Ransom. He now seated himself close by. 
“How did you come to know it?” he asked. 

Maurice blew his nose. His handkerchief 
was slightly scented. 

“I must make a thorough confidant of you, 
now,” he remarked. 

“I think you’d better.” 

“My wife had a sharp attack of influenza a 
month after the death. One night the fever 
ran high and I sat up with her. She was 
delirious. She let it all out.” 

“You’ve forgiven her then?” 

“She doesn’t know I know it.” 

“Not!” 

“No. It’s this way. If she knew I know 
she wouldn’t forgive me. She’d never put up 
with the position. Too haughty.” 

He slid down to the foot of the lounge-chair 
which was towards the fire and rubbed his cold 
hands. Ned had started smoking. He pushed 
his cigarette case at Maurice. “No,” said 


The Shot 115 

Maurice, “Dr. Pinney’s knocked me off cigar¬ 
ettes. He says—‘one pipe a day,’ and I’ve had 
my pipe.” He looked round at Ned. “You 
know she didn’t care particularly about Mr. 
Demmean,” he said. 

“What’s that?” 

“No. She didn’t. She wants to get into 
good society . I must say it seems to me only 
natural to progress; I’m fairly ambitious my¬ 
self, but with her it’s a mania. The night of 
her fever, that was all she was on about. What 
her position would be—divorce had ceased to 
be any disgrace—the old name Demmean is 
—Mr. Demmean’s property—what she’d do— 
where she’d live—a lot like that. One tender 
thought? Not one. Mr. Demmean was pe¬ 
culiar—so she said—but she’d be able to 
manage him. No fear of his not marrying her. 
She knew how to ensure that. How could she 
be so callous, I wonder. The first woman I 
ever knew who wasn’t wax to his flame. Why, 
she spoke more affectionately of me than of 
him. She did. Poor Maurice is a good chap . 
Sorry , Maurice . I sat there and heard her 
say it.” 

Now that Maurice’s idea of the gentlemanly 


Ii6 The Shot 

brilliant character he wished to appear had 
been driven out by the working of real feeling, 
now that he was simply, even thankfully, re¬ 
lieving his mind—he became interesting. 

As he sat there with ruffled hair and red¬ 
dened face, Ned was reminded of a winter 
evening at Randal’s Hope (his grandmother’s 
place in Cumberland) when the three of them, 
aged nine, discussed over the fire in the hall 
the question, Had or had not a certain joint 
crime been discovered? Would the mistress 
of Randal’s Hope in the morning tell the 
coachman to thrash all three boys? Such was 
the old lady’s brave notion of discipline. 

Ned forgot how the affair ended. It was 
the one firelight moment came back so clearly; 
the extreme gravity of the situation; Maurice 
on the brink of tears; Julian’s exquisite face 
with the tongue out in affected defiance; his 
own stony sensations as he laid his head against 
the hard strong-smelling side of the aged great 
buff-coloured mastiff sitting with them. 

He had a kindlier movement towards 
Maurice than he would have thought possible 
a while back. 


The Shot 117 

“It was an unnerving experience for you,” 
he said. 

“Yes. But it explained everything.” 

“How—everything?” 

“His melancholy and the suicide.” 

“I don’t see that.” 

“Don’t you?” 

“No. With the cup just at his lips to dash 
it down-” 

“Oh, but Captain Demmean, he had a good 
—a beautiful side to his nature. The feeling 
of how dishonourably he was acting by me— 
the cruelty to Miss Busshe—yet he couldn’t 
refrain —must get what he desired or die—and 
that in the end ‘was the end; he did die. He 
was torn in two and unable to stand it.” 

With Julian’s letter in his pocket which was 
so far from bearing out Maurice’s theory, Ned 
shook his head. 

“My conviction is only strengthened by 
this,” he said. 

“What?” said Maurice, turning on him in 
surprise and speaking almost in a whisper, 
“have you always thought it wasn’t suicide?” 

“Yes.” 

“You’re mistaken, Captain Demmean.” 



n8 The Shot 

“Time will show.” 

“Is it what Gaywood said about the mag¬ 
nolia you’re thinking of? Because I’m a bit 
of a horticulturist and I agree with Mr. 
Grant’s gardener that the injuries to the mag¬ 
nolia were the storm’s work. Surely we two 
ought to know better than a police-officer.” 

“Well, we shall see,” said Ned quietly. 
“Meanwhile don’t say anything about the line 
I take. I would rather the public didn’t know 
what I’m after.” 

Maurice had a jerk through his whole body. 

“Captain Demmean! That gives me my 
opening. I’ve a petition—call it a prayer if 
you like. The revelation in Mr. Demmean’s 
letter—can you—will you—keep it close?” 

“You don’t suppose I would give a woman’s 
secret away unnecessarily. But it’s not quite 
a simple matter, you see. More view points 
than one.” 

“You’re thinking of Miss Busshe,” said 
Maurice, who could be very quick. “Wasting 
regrets on a man who’d virtually thrown her 
over. But, mark me, she’s started towards 
recovery and if she gets this shock it’ll throw 
her back. Kill her, perhaps.” 


The Shot 119 

Now this was what Ned thought. But he 
had a conscience which was a perfect plague 
to him and he knew well that he wanted to 
think so. Because, while he had looked to his 
close relationship to the devoted lover she had 
lost to help him with Emmy, the fact that he 
was the brother of the man whom only death 
liad stopped from jilting her might ruin him 
with the girl. So he couldn’t quite trust him¬ 
self in the matter. 

“I must take time to consider,” he said, 
rather dismally. 

Maurice burst out again. 

“Then consider this with the rest. I only ask 
to live a happy, comfortable life with my wife; 
we’ve had differences, I don’t deny it; I want 
children and Coral doesn’t; and then she would 
have it I was pleased when her mother died 

and one thing and another- But since— 

since the tragedy in this house she’s been dif¬ 
ferent. Wonderful how she took it. When I 
got home after finding him”—Maurice stopped 
and gulped—“when I got home,” he went on, 
“she’d heard of it. As I’ve told you, I’d not 
the faintest idea then she’d any interest out of 
the common in Mr. Demmean. So on I ran. 



120 


The Shot 

getting it all off my chest, and she didn’t say 
much; just 'How shocking—How terrible — 
Poor Miss Busshe J —the flat things women al¬ 
ways say; but still, it’s had an effect on her. 
She seems to have settled down domestically 
and she’s nicer to me. More come-at-able. 
Now, if the truth about Mr. Demmean and her 
comes out, everything of that sort’s knocked 
on the head.” 

Ned sat frowning. The situation was singu¬ 
larly complicated. As he meditated, his glance 
fell on the volume of Dante which he had laid 
down on the fireside table, open at the first 
page of the poem. He read: 

In the midway of this our mortal life, 

I found me in a gloomy wood, astray. 

Gone from the path direct: and e’en to tell 
It were no easy task, how savage wild 
That forest, how robust and rough its growth— 

Ned had a half smile. The passage seemed 
appropriate. He looked at Maurice’s anxious 
face. “Look here ” he said, “I give you my 
word that unless anything quite unforeseen 
happens the facf shall-” 

“Sleep?” suggested Maurice. 



The Shot 121 

“Yes, sleep; for two months. Then we’ll talk 
it over again.” 

With this Maurice had to content himself. 
What helped him to do it was his growing con¬ 
sciousness of the good change in Edward Dem- 
mean’s manner towards him. 

Ned got up and mended the fire. Turning 
round, still holding on to the poker, “And 
now,” he said, “will you tell me one thing more? 
Do you know of anyone beside my brother who 
at about the same time might possibly have 
been feeling a special interest in Mrs. Ran¬ 
som?” 

“I see what you’re driving at,” said Maurice. 
“No. I don’t know of a soul. Coral isn’t a flirt. 
Very quiet, on the contrary. The only man 
she’s been friendly with besides Mr. Demmean 
is Mr. Sim, the Vicar of old Daunt parish 
church, All Saints’. And he’s a man past fifty 
—an ascetic—and has a reputation above 
everything. His friendliness doesn’t mark a 
woman out. He’s friendly with all his flock, 
and it’s mostly women.” 

Ned nodded. Maurice rose. Some moments 
passed; each of the young men thinking his 
own thoughts. 


122 


The Shot 

Maurice said quietly, “Words can hardly 
say, Captain Demmean, how fully I forgive— 
him . But, you see—don’t you?—I couldn’t 
take the money.” 

Ned patted him on the shoulder. 


C hapter IX 


E know already that Alfred and Lottie 



▼ V Swanell, Grant’s housekeeper and in¬ 
door man, took good care of themselves. They 
had the earliest and the latest fires; and while 
Ned Demmean and Maurice Ransom sat talk¬ 
ing over theirs, which was only newly lighted, 
the boy who helped Swanell brought into the 
hot little housekeeper’s room at Rufus Lodge 
a fresh scuttle of coals; in spite of the sun, that 
fire had been going all day. 

Rose was there, having looked in on her way 
back from Dr. Pinney’s. 

“How’s the mother?” Lottie was saying. 

Rose waited to answer till the boy had gone 
out. 

“Very quiet,” she then said. 

Leah Swanell, after being absent nearly all 
the summer, had come back home in the last 
week of September. 

“She’s not favoured us with a call,” said 
Lottie. 


«3 


124 The Shot 

“She doesn’t do much but ramble in the 
Park,” said Rose. 

“What about the Bunch of GrapesV ’ Alfred 
Swanell enquired. He was smoking his pipe 
in the high-backed arm-chair. His relief jacket 
of light grey alpaca was unbecoming. 

“I don’t believe she’s been there once,” said 
Rose, “and I think I should know.” 

“Smell it, wouldn’t you?” said Lottie. Rose 
glanced away. Lottie sometimes seemed to 
her unbearably coarse. 

“I like this article,” said the unconscious 
Lottie, holding up a silver coffee-pot she was 
cleaning. “Mr. Grant’s parents left him a lot 
of nice things. A pity he’s not married.” 

“Never will be,” said Alfred. 

“No telling.” 

“Poh! He don’t want a woman tagging after 
him.” 

“Come to think, I don’t want one tagging 
after me,” laughed Lottie. “I’d rather be my 
own missus when all’s said and done.” 

Rose was sitting opposite to her brother. 
While he and his wife talked she was listening 
intently but not to what they were saying. The 
door between the body of the house and the 


The Shot 125 

kitchen quarters was open. So was the room 
door a little bit. 

The sound of Grant’s chamber organ came 
in. Rose closed her eyes. She imagined her¬ 
self in the music-room, standing near him, as 
when in the old days he had tempted his aunt 
round. Surely she knows this music. Isn’t it 
his favourite Bach? 

Alfred drew up his knees. “What a draught! 
Go and see if the passage door’s open, Lottie.” 

She bounced off, she was in a good humour. 

“It ought to he a swing-door, felted,” she 
remarked, as she returned, pulling the room 
door behind her. 

My life, thought Rose. A waft of glorious 
music; and then the door of communication is 
closed. 

It was hot—stifling. She got up to go. 
“Stop to supper,” urged Lottie. 

Rose declined. She hurried on her coat and 
hat. A thin, pleasing figure. 

‘Rose keeps her appearance,” remarked 
Lottie when she was gone. 

“She’s stuck up,” said Alfred. 

“Dresses quiet enough.” 

“That’s part of it. And so’s her church- 


126 The Shot 

going. Chapel’s not smart enough. The old 
Countess spoiled Rose.” 

And Rose was thinking, as she passed 
through the autumn-smelling dark of trees and 
of evening to the gate, What a fool I am! 
Despicable. Why do I go and see Alfred and 
Lottie? I don’t care for them. But I’m near 
him . Fool. Fool. 

The music-room window was open. Faintly 
the strains reached her. She stood a moment. 

Yet why a fool?—she wondered. Why not 
love the finest man I know? What if it’s wis¬ 
dom? The folly would be if I’d ever dreamed 
he would think of me except in an ordinary 
way. No, I’m no fool. 

The music stopped. She couldn’t see the 
lighted, now silent, window, it was round at 
the side of the house. A momentary tempta¬ 
tion; just to tiptoe round and give the window 
a look; then she made haste to the gate. 

There some one was waiting for her. Hinch- 
ley, deciding that he wasn’t likely to be wanted 
for anything, had strolled aimlessly forth. He 
saw Rose go in at Rufus Lodge. Aimlessness 
ceased. He stationed himself at the gate. He 
had waited half an hour. 


The Shot 127 

When Rose, at the age of sixteen, came to 
wait on the Contessa at Como, Hinchley, then 
twenty, was already installed there as handy 
man. He became attached to Rose. His feel¬ 
ings were calm, they didn’t interfere with his 
appetite or sleep, but though unencouraged he 
had been faithful for fifteen years. 

“Good evening. Rose.” He stepped for¬ 
ward. 

“Good evening,” she said, not unkindly. “A 
nice night.” 

“Yes.” 

He walked beside her. And made a feeble 
attempt to take hold of her arm. “No,” she 
said. “You know I prefer to be independent.” 

“Don’t you think you’ve been independent 
long enough. Rose?” 

“I’m not tired of it.” 

“Why, you must be twenty-eight.” 

“Past thirty.” 

“There!—Rose, is it true what your brother 
Alfred says, that you won’t look at me because 
I’m a servant?” 

“No.” 

“Oh! Because I was thinking a small gen¬ 
eral shop is a need in the Regent’s Road and 


128 The Shot 

your cottage fronting that way, if Mr. Grant, 
being the landlord, didn’t object, a few altera¬ 
tions would make a tidy little shop of it and we 
could start without upsetting your mother. 
I know she clings to All Saints’ Alley.” 

“Where’s the capital to come from?” 

“I’ve saved. Now Rose, what do you say.” 

“Nonsense.” 

“I’d make you so happy. I’m a total ab¬ 
stainer.” 

Rose had a sense of humour. She smiled in 
the semi-obscurity. The moon, one day past 
the full, was not up yet and the Daunt Road 
lamps in 1920 were still economically dim. 

“You’ll make a splendid husband,” said 
Rose. “Find some one who wants to be a 
wife. I’ll be godmother to the first girl and 
then there’ll be a Rose Hinchley smaller and 
nicer than me.” 

Hinchley sighed audibly. They had got to 
the top of All Saints’ Alley. “Good night,” 
said Rose and offered her hand. 

“Rose, why ever won’t you?” Hinchley in¬ 
quired. 

“Because I was born an old maid.” 

She smiled again as she ran up the alley. 
She had other wooers beside Hinchley and 


The Shot 129 

didn’t mind having them. Being sought after 
seemed to make her worthier to worship John 
Grant. 

Letting herself in with her latch-key she 
lighted the gas in the kitchen. Was her mother 
out or gone to bed ? A voice called from above. 

“Rose.” 

She went up. Her mother’s room, the room 
in which Leah’s four children had been born, 
was always untidy once Leah was in it, what¬ 
ever Rose might do. The old woman liked 
things on the floor. Yet she had an eye for 
beauty. There was a jug on the mantel-shelf 
with ruby-berried autumn boughs sticking out 
from it. 

Leah was lying dressed on her bed. She sat 
partly up as her daughter came in. 

“Is this true, what I hear. Rose?” she said. 

“What, mother?” 

“About John Grant.” 

“What about him?” 

“That they’ve made him a magistrate.” 

“Yes.” 

“Then he’s art and part with the gang that 
killed my Jimmy,” Leah cried out. 

“No, mother, no.” (It was useless to tell 
Leah that her darling had died in the prison 


130 The Shot 

infirmary, well looked after. Her delusion on 
the point was incurable.) “You’re thinking of 
long ago,” said Rose soothingly. “The gentle¬ 
men that were magistrates in poor Jimmy’s 
time are all dead and gone.” 

“Gone to hell,” said Leah. 

Rose pointed to the mantel-shelf. 

“Look at your berries! I never saw such 
beauties. Where have you been?” 

“Where have you been? In John Grant’s 
house?” 

“We’re in his house now,” said Rose, flush¬ 
ing, “and at half the rent we’d pay anywhere 
else for the same accommodation.” 

“I love the house,” said Leah, wildly. “The 
house where when I come back I see a light in 
the window. That was your father’s notion. 
Poor chap! God rest him.” 

“Yes, mother. Amen. And he worked all 
his life for our Mr. Grant and his father and 
he thought no end of them, didn’t he?—and 
your pension—that comes from Mr. Grant,” 
coaxed Rose; but she made a mistake in going 
back to the subject. 

“Curse him,” said Leah in a loud voice 5 
“Curse the magistrate!” 


C hapter X 


WEEK went by, the first week of Octo 



jLjl ber. Like a sword out of its sheath a 
bright day had sprung from mist; at half-past 
three in the afternoon Coral Ransom, standing 
at the open front-door of her villa, seemed to 
be enjoying the sun; but she wasn’t conscious 
of it; thinking too intently. 

Coral was the daughter of a pretty, inno¬ 
cent-minded, gentle young lady’s maid who 
always felt certain that her mistress’s only son 
would have married her when she told him a 
child was coming—his child—only he was killed 
in a railway accident before she knew it her¬ 
self. 

His mother was kind, however, believed what 
she said, and took her back six months after 
the child’s birth. The old lady (she married 
late) never saw Coral till she was two. Then 
she was so delighted with her beauty that she 
said the mother might have the little girl with 


132 The Shot 

her under the style and title of an orphan 
niece. 

And at the age of ten Coral was sent to a 
good hoarding school. Three years later the 
old lady died. She had meant to provide for 
the child, hut death surprised her in between 
two wills and her legitimate heirs saw no rea¬ 
son why they should bother. 

Coral’s mother sickened at the thought of 
strange service. She married an old admirer, 
a builder in a small way, at Southsea, her native 
place. He gave the little girl his name, Hamil¬ 
ton; and she was able to call Mrs. Hamilton 
mother. That was something. 

Coral didn’t care about the things she was 
supposed to learn at school; but at thirteen 
her character was singularly mature; she came 
away with what was not a dream but a resolu¬ 
tion; she would, she must be a lady. 

Fate was unkind. As time went on her 
beauty brought her only proposals which were 
either not good enough or dishonourable. When 
the war broke out she went in for bomb-manu¬ 
facturing. Maurice Ransom was superin¬ 
tendent of her department in the vast place she 
worked in. He fell in love with Coral and 


The Shot 133 

after some months of indecision she married 
him. Not for love; she loved no one but her 
mother. But she was tired, her nerves went 
wrong; the treats Maurice Ransom gave her 
set her up; she came to associate him with 
escape from suffering. So it happened. They 
both romanced a bit about their origin. When 
the truth came out neither could very well find 
fault. Maurice was for a time too much smit¬ 
ten to care. Coral cared. She felt she had 
thrown herself away. 

But she made the best of it. Photography 
had always attracted Maurice, and when no 
more bombs were wanted it was Coral who 
suggested his starting a business in the suburbs, 
on high lines. 

Once settled at Daunt she began working 
her way up. The High Church banner had 
lately been unfurled at All Saints’. She en¬ 
listed and it was a great help to her. The 
best of it was she really was High Church. 
Only she had never before done anything spe¬ 
cial in consequence. 

At first her appearance was against her. 
Women shrank from one so handsome. Coral 
knew she simply must gain the women. What 


134 The Shot 

could the men do for her? Oh, what pains she 
took not to flirt with them! And by degrees 
her prudence told. There were smiles for her 
at churchy rendezvous; handshakes; at last 
patronizing admission to one or two select pri¬ 
vate houses. Still, slow was the work. 

Then came her mother's illness and death. 
She had always been a safeguard to Coral. 
Keep straight, keep straight, my dove, that 
was the cry of the mother who hadn’t kept 
straight; and Coral would have hated to grieve 
her. Now that check was gone. She came 
home in a bitter mood, scorning a world in 
which a creature so pure and devoted had 
been humiliated, overlooked, cast away; angry 
because, though he tried to hide it, she saw 
Maurice thought Mrs. Hamilton’s decease a 
propitious event; his old butler father (to 
whom he had always been kind) had had the 
grace to quit several years back. 

Yes, she was bitter, she was fierce-feeling, 
when she met Julian Demmean and his sudden, 
desperate passion confronted—enveloped her. 
She liked his adoration; it gave her a sense of 
power; and power was very dear to her. But 
Maurice was right; she didn’t care for him. 


Thefihot 135 

Her temperament was frigid and she thought 
him so odd! Still, as she said to herself in 
rather a cruel soliloquy, it’s surely better to 
have the master than the man. 

His death was a terrible shock, but the neces¬ 
sity for concealment helped her to face the 
thing out. Nor was she a person with whom 
regret could ever last long. She had to be 
up and doing. 

Back to her old tracks she went, plunging 
deeper than ever into parish activities; and 
her experiences had assisted her development; 
she was more knowing socially. Maurice’s 
camera studies, which were in truth excellent, 
began to take; he specialized in life groups; 
the summer had been favourable both to hus¬ 
band and wife. 

And so Coral was cheerful this afternoon as 
she stood at her own hall-door, laying her own 
plans, and when Captain Demmean passed by 
on the other side of the road she smiled and 
nodded; friendly, not too friendly; she liked 
seeing his hat sweep the air; she said to her¬ 
self, watching him down the road, “How lit¬ 
tle he dreams that I was very nearly his sister- 


136 The Shot 

in-law!” It struck her that she had been won¬ 
derfully protected. No one knew her secret. 

Leaving her happy in this delusive convic¬ 
tion we pass on with Ned Demmean. 

Ned hadn’t let the grass grow under his 
feet. He had spent two evenings at Fir Bank 
and called once in the afternoon. 

The evenings were everything and nothing. 
He went the first time, hoping Grant wouldn’t 
be there, but he was; and Ned learned that 
Emmy always sat by her father while he and 
Grant played chess, watching Busshe’s game. 
So his natural lot would have been to talk to 
Miss Watkyn; only Grant asked him if he 
would like to learn to play; a ready yes from 
Ned; he was posted at Grant’s elbow. Frank 
Busshe quite liked the novelty and as they 
played Grant explained things to his pupil 
with a clearness and an absence of swank which 
ought to have suited the younger man. Ned, 
however, was still only conscious of objecting 
to him. 

Never mind. He was close to Emmy and 
she was quiet and sweet; there was no aiming 
at vivacity for his benefit; slender and white 


The Shot 137 

as a wax taper in her evening frock she seemed 
to breathe gently as a flower at his side. 

The pity was that Francis Busshe told him 
to come again for a lesson and named the eve¬ 
ning. One of Grant’s evenings. Ned wanted 
to try a different development. And in the 
afternoon when he called Emmy was out. 

To tell the truth he had now rambled forth 
with no definite idea beyond the one which 
haunted him—he might meet her. Not once 
had he so far had any luck. But as he neared 
Fir Bank the niece and the aunt came out at 
the gate and bore towards him. They were 
arm-in-arm. 

Ned turned and walked alongside of them. 
He was in high favour with Miss Watkyn. 

She remarked in gratified accents that they 
were taking him out of his way. He said he 
had no way—no more than a stray dog. 

They came in sight of the Bansom abode. 
Coral had progressed; she was at the gate now; 
and the Bev. Ludovic Sim, in his black uni¬ 
form of a soft hat which cleverly contrived to 
look Popish, stood talking to her. 

Miss Watkyn could no longer reasonably at¬ 
tempt to avoid contact with the Bansoms either 


138 The Shot 

for herself or Emmy. The pair had made too 
much way for that. But she disliked the up¬ 
stairs, as she called them, more not less on that 
account. 

“We won’t stop,” she remarked. “J hate 
gossiping in the road. And we’re in a hurry.” 

She loved gossiping, quite irrespective of lo¬ 
cality, and they weren’t in a hurry; still, Benny 
felt as if she was telling the truth. 

Mr. Sim, however, sprang on them with 
knock-you-down cordiality. Miss Watkyn 
was already his property, so to speak, and he 
wished to annex her niece, and he had called 
on Captain Demmean the day before and got 
from him with the greatest ease a handsome 
subscription for the All Saints’ Branch of the 
Boy Scouts, so all deserved his smiles; his broad 
dark face with the ugly strong features was 
radiant; his burly form, which looked little like 
that of an ascetic, though he really was one, 
stopped up the path. “Hullo—hullo—hullo” 
—three shake-hands. “We weren’t going to 
interrupt your tete-a-tete ” said Miss Watkyn. 

“Now, don’t be scandalous, Miss Watkyn. 
Virginity is lovely—worshipful—but virgins 
you know, are sometimes that” He laughed 


The Shot 139 

loud. Miss Watkyn would have deemed it in¬ 
decent in anyone else to call her a virgin. Mr. 
Sim might say anything. He looked at Ned 
Demmean. “We were discussing our great 
Sale for the new Mission Room which comes 
off next week,” he informed the young man. 

By this time Miss Watkyn had grudgingly 
bowed to Coral and Emmy had given her a 
languid little hand and a faint smile and in 
spite of Miss Watkyn a stationary group was 
formed around the All Saints’ Studio garden 
gate. 

“There are to be twelve lady sellers,” Sim 
trumpeted on, “and they’re all going to repre¬ 
sent Queens. Admission will be charged for.” 

“Queens!” ejaculated Miss Watkyn. 

“Yes.” Mr. Sim looked hard at Emmy. 
“Miss Busshe,” he said, “one of our sellers has 
disappointed us. Now, will you be a Queen? 
Do.” 

He softened his manner very much in speak¬ 
ing to the young girl. 

“Me?” said Emmy absently. 

“You. You. Why not? Why not help?” 

Benny was up like a fussy old hen protecting 
a chicken. “Emmy dislikes publicity.” 


140 The Shot 

“D’you never do what you dislike, Miss 
Busshe?” demanded Sim, still very gently 
though. “Never,” cried Emmy with sudden 
animation, and forth came her quick nervy 
smile and her hazel eyes grew larger; she 
seemed all eyes and smile. “But of course I’d 
like to he a Queen,” she went on. “What 
Queen?” 

“That was just the question,” said Sim, con¬ 
cealing a triumphant feeling and turning to 
Coral. “You and Mrs. Bansom are left rather 
high and dry, I fear. Mary of Scots, Marie 
Antoinette, Elizabeth, Boadicea, Queen of 
Hearts—all the best sellers—is that a pun?— 
eh?—gone.” 

At this moment, on the other side of the 
road, Grant appeared. He was walking fast 
and either did not see or didn’t seem to see thei 
social cluster at Maurice Hansom’s gate. The 
road happened to be clear of traffic. Emmy 
called sharply across, as she might have done 
at thirteen—“Uncle Jack!” 

Grant was Granty at Fir Bank, Uncle Jack 
elsewhere. 

He came over at once. His eye took in the 
group. 


The Shot 141 

Coral Ransom, thinly black-robed, most 
striking; her hair one glitter in the sun; aspect 
composed. Miss Watkyn stuffing out a grey 
mantle, her favourite feature slightly elevated. 
Emmy in a little blue serge coat and skirt and 
plain cap drawn forward; her shadowy look, 
her burning look; a slight tremor round the 
mouth. The Rev. Ludovic Sim hovering round 
the women like a great crow. Edward Dem- 
mean on the edge of things, with a heavy, un¬ 
pleasant expression in his face. 

He was feeling unpleasant. Just as simply 
as if he’d been fifteen or sixteen he was craving 
for circumstances which would give him a 
chance with Emmy. All this smother and 
pother! He thought of Mespot. Beastly Mes- 
pot. Yes; but a hazardous situation with that 
setting rose in his mind. Emmy, the centre of 
it. And he, well armed, on the horse he pre¬ 
ferred- He met Grant’s observant eye and 

coloured up as if the man could read his 
thoughts. His absurd thoughts. Meanwhile 
Sim, with flourishes, was laying before Grant 
the “Queens” dilemma. 

Grant must have been surprised to hear that 



142 The Shot 

Emmy had consented to help in the Mission 

Room Sale. He made no comment. 

Very polite, with that sort of politeness 
which is the best protection of the reserved, a 
trifle nonchalant, the slight smile which always 
seemed to have a hint of sarcasm in it on his 
face, he turned to Coral Ransom. “Queen of 
the Night?” he said. “The Moon? An astron¬ 
omer’s idea, you see.” 

Some people said Grant believed in nothing 
but astronomy. Others thought he was secretly 
a Roman Catholic. Though why secretly? Sim 
wasn’t small; he didn’t mind all that. But it 
did vex him that in his liberality which, for 
his means, was munificent, Grant should make 
no distinction between Church and the chapels. 
If he had been anyone else Sim would have 
attacked him about it. But Grant was himself, 
so he didn’t. Altogether their personal rela¬ 
tions were formal. 

“That’s it!” shouted Sim. “Mrs. Ransom, 
you’re suited. You have the Diana phiz.” 

Ned thought of the passage in Julian’s let¬ 
ter —The face of Diana, the form of Venus , 
His annoyance increased. The sight of Coral 
Ransom close to Emmy Busshe jarred on him. 


The Shot 143 

Come away. Come away. Lift those divine 
little feet from Daunt’s dirty asphalt and 
come with me. Away! Away! Where shall it 
be? Choose. Come. 

Outwardly he looked sulkier and sulkier. 

Grant looked at Emmy. “You liked Hans 
Andersen when you were young,” he said. 
“What’s the matter with the Snow Queen?” 

Emmy nodded toward him. 

“Benny, I’m the Snow Queen,” she said. 

Coral was seeing herself a real vision. 

“I can manage my dress quite cheaply,” she 
said with a modest air. “Thank you, Mr. 
Grant.” 

“And now—Uncle Jack,” questioned 

Emmy, “where were you going so fast?” 

“To call for your father. We-” Ned 

missed the rest. 

“Oh!” Emmy cried, “take me along. Come, 
Benny. We were going nowhere.” Hasty 
good-byes; in one moment between her real 
aunt and adopted uncle she was gone. 

Sim rushed off to blow as if with bellows 
hope and help into the wreck of a clever young 
wheelwright shell-shocked in the war. He 
didn’t leave the poor to his curate. 



The Shot 


144 

Coral went in. 

Ned lounged disgustedly along. Although 
there could be no serious jealousy on his part 
of a man who liked being called Uncle, his 
predominant sensation was. Damn Grant. He 
was in the main a good-natured fellow and all 
this was unlike him. But love loads us with 
faults as well as virtues not our own. 

He came to a side-entrance into the Park 
and went in. It was a new region to him. 
After some time of discontented blind roving 
he stood still. Looked round. A silent spot. 
Beautiful. And (so it seemed) familiar. That 
he couldn’t understand. 

Long grass levels stretched away to meet a 
yellow sky. Close at hand trees were grouped 
in a half-circle; nay, it was more than a half 
one. They held their green yet; a lush sober 
green; only one felt it was going. Some fifty 
paces off stood an oak that had been struck by 
lightning. The great trunk with the young 
shoots, the dreary blackened top caught the 
last sun rays. 

Ned suddenly remembered why he knew the 
scene. It was one of those Julian had chosen 
to photograph with Maurice Ransom’s help. 


The Shot 145 

Yes, in the study at Como the framed picture 
hung with two others. The dip in the ground, 
the blasted oak, the high trees almost bare— 
early, early spring- 

“Is it Captain Demmean?” 

A woman’s voice, clear and firm, asked the 
question. 

He turned round. 

A tall woman, nearer seventy than sixty, 
stepped forward. Ned had an excellent mem¬ 
ory for faces. People who knew them both 
well saw no likeness between Rose and Leah. 
But Ned, the stranger, perceived at once that 
this must be the mother of the young dress¬ 
maker he had seen for a moment at Dr. Pin- 
ney’s. Certainly it was Leah Swanell. And 
her voice and figure and movements impressed 
him in an unlooked for way. He could believe 
what Pinney had said; that Leah was a re¬ 
markable character. 

Leah has not changed since the spring. Her 
dress is the same but she wears a black straw 
hat with a red rose in it. 

In answer to her question—“I am Captain 
Demmean,” said Ned, and moved his cap in 
deference to age and sex. 



146 The Shot 

Leaning on her stick Leah looked at him 
hard. “You’re not as handsome as your 
brother, Captain,” she remarked. 

“No,” said Ned. 

“A luckier face, though.” 

“Is that so?” 

“Ay! D’you know where you are?” 

“Scarcely.” 

“Great Oak Dip. It’s a pretty, pretty 
spot. I’ve no quarrel with kings like some 
people. The King lets me walk here. Do 
places mind you of people. Captain?” 

“Not this place. I’m new to it,” said Ned. 
He was very willing to listen to Leah. Not 
only did she interest him in herself but he 
hoped for further mention of Julian. 

“And I’m old to it,” she said with a strange 
inward look. “Old, old to it. I’ve always 
favoured Great Oak Dip. I remember—don’t 
I—don’t I remember!—coming this way years 
back, couldn’t say how many; I’d my Jimmy 
with me, a little chap”—she indicated with one 
hand the height of a child of eight or nine— 
“we met here, just here; Francis Busshe and 
his wife and John Grant, walking together; 
the three of them. Mrs. Busshe stopped and 


The,Shot 147 

spoke, she knew me well. She was an angel. 
She kissed Jimmy and praised him for the 
man he looked. Young Mrs. Busshe was an 
angel. She’d only to speak and the restless¬ 
ness died in me. It was summer time and I 
looked and the grass seemed a deeper green 
and the trees to stand more solemn and the 
light and the shadows lay out before me like 
a dream. A dream; a dream; it’s we are the 
dream. The trees and the grass ground are 
with us yet and the summer light and the 
shadows come back and back and back to 
Great Oak Dip; but where’s young Mrs. 
Busshe?—where’s—where’s my Jimmy?” 

Ned was speechless. Her emotion discon¬ 
certed him. 

“You’re about the age he’d a’been,” she 
said, suddenly becoming quite composed. 
“How old are you?” 

“Twenty-seven.” 

“That’s it. Then was you and the one that 
was shot twins?” 

“Yes.” 

“Poor chap. He was as bright as the sun. 
I say! They talk of the sun going down in 
blood. So did he. Poor chap. And there’s a 


148 The Shot 

secret; some secret about it. Did you know?” 

Ned’s heart gave a plunge. He stepped 
close and looked into her face. “What secret?” 
he said. 

She didn’t budge; but her expression 
changed as if by magic to utter vacancy. 

“Who are you staring at?” she said, with a 
silly smile. Ned shifted his ground. “I dare¬ 
say my brother made friends with you,” he 
said easily. 

“He did. I used to see him about with little 
Emmy. Did you ever stand at All Saints’ 
church gate, while the bells clamoured, and 
feel Emmy dance up and down, screaming for 
joy, and her hand in yours?” 

Ned shook his head. 

“Church bells,” murmured Leah. 4 “They’re 
fine. I’m a Christian. Been baptized. Do 
I look like it? Rose don’t like my hat.” 

“What’s wrong with the hat?” said patient 
Ned. 

“Ah! You’ve not your brother’s silver 
tongue. But you’ve a steadier head. Of the 
two I’d rather trust a secret with you than 
with him. If he could speak now! Poor chap. 
What wouldn’t he tell you? What wouldn’t I 


The Shot 149 

tell you if-” She brought her teeth to¬ 

gether; the pale lips met over them; her head 
rocked. The mouth jumped open as if of 
itself.—“Or show you, eh?” she said. “See- 
ing’s believing.” 

Ned remained silent. 

“Twins. Twins. That’s close,” she whis¬ 
pered. 

“If you know anything, for God’s sake 
speak out,” he said, unable to contain himself. 

“Speak out? Out? Not out here, Captain. 
A bird of the air might carry the matter. 
Scripture says so.” 

“Will you come and see me, Mrs. Swanell?” 
“At Como?” 

“Yes.” 

“Ay. But I’ll not be looked over by your 
servants. I’m not speaking about Hinchley, 
He’s a good lad. It’s the petticoats.” 

“Hinchley answers the door. When will you 
come?” 

“My counsellors will tell me when.” 
“Who?” 

“My counsellors.” 

“Who are they?” 

“They don’t give their names.” 



150 The Shot 

“Anyhow, is it a promise, Mrs. Swanell?” 
urged Ned. 

“Ay. But what will people say to you 
receiving an old madwoman? Did you know 
I’m mad?” 

She faced him close, opening her eyes strong 
and wide. What was it he saw in their depths ? 
Cunning? 

“You’ve wit enough for me, Mrs. Swanell,” 
he said quietly. 

The mist was rising from the grass. Ned 
shivered. “Shouldn’t you get home?” he said. 
“You’ll take cold.” 

“Nay, nay, what’s a bit o’ mist? Don’t it 
float like ghosts? But you go back to Como, 
Captain, and have Hinchley make your fire 
up and put your feet in the fender. You’ve 
the tail of a foreign sickness up your sleeve yet. 
A sickness—fever—far off—Asia ” 

Her head dropped forward; she turned 
from him, stood motionless. Ned felt that if 
he spoke again she wouldn’t answer. He left 
her. 

The unaccountable but very real influence 
of her presence being removed, he wondered— 
Wasn’t it all crazy rambling? 



The Shot 151 

Yet that spark in the eye-depths! 

Fraud? But she asked for nothing. 

No doubt, Leah Swanell, with her gipsy 
connections and proclivities had some queer 
associates. Could the crime after all have 
been one of vulgar violence? 

A ruffianly tramp finds his way to Como 
on the fatal morning; perhaps he only means 
to beg, but tempted by the deserted state of 
the place he penetrates to the study; Julian 
enters suddenly, and the thief is frightened 
first into murder, next into empty-handed 
flight. 

Neither probable nor impossible. 

Would Leah come to Como? Ned thought 
she would. 

He was back in his own study. No; it never 
seemed his own. Julian’s. He threw himself 
on the lounge-chair. The old gipsy’s words 
sounded in his ears. “Blood. If he could 
speak! What wouldn’t he tell you?” 

The secretaire, the masked door hiding the 
little winding staircase to the bedroom above, 
the very floor where his brother had lain dead 
seemed charged as if with words that couldn’t 
be got out. 


152 The Shot 

And he saw the stoutish, plain, elderly 
woman caller in her brown dress and black 
mantle and green hat; and the creeping mag¬ 
nolia tree and the treasured key to the garden- 
door and the mutilated picture of the Iron 
Duke and the missing card and letter—yes— 
even the almost new umbrella out of the hall 
all lay before him as if shaken from a Chinese 
puzzle-box. It was more than he could stand. 
He felt intolerably alone. Off he went to the 
Pinneys. Dined there. The doctor and still 
more, if possible, Eve his wife, made a great 
big fuss of Ned and it did him good. 


C hapter XI 


I T was the following Saturday. Evening. 

Eight o’clock. In the dining-room at 
Rufus Lodge, Maurice Ransom was waiting 
to see Grant. One day in the summer Grant 
stopped to admire a choice rose-bush in the 
Ransoms’ front garden. Maurice had now 
walked round with some cuttings. Mr. Grant 
was engaged at this moment, said Alfred 
Swanell; he had just been called away to see a 
gentleman in the library. But when Maurice 
explained his errand Swanell seemed to think 
he would be a welcome visitor; so here the 
young man sat. 

The dining-room is square; moderate sized; 
two deep-set windows framed in creepers not 
yet bare of leaf are open; the dark evening 
looks in. The present John Grant’s father 
used this room a great deal. His son has 
altered nothing. The room bears the stamp 
of the old man’s character. The furniture is 


153 


154 The Shot 

old, dark, handsome with plainness; from the 
clock on the chimney piece to the door-weight, 
everything harmonizes. Integrity; exacti¬ 
tude ; firmness; success well deserved and 
calmly enjoyed—how does the room contrive 
to speak of these things? 

There is no electric light, not even gas; the 
light comes from a beautiful French Second 
Empire lamp on the sideboard. 

Grant likes for his dinner a cut of good 
meat, another of cheese and then fruit and two 
or three small glasses of wine from his father’s 
deep-stocked cellars. He hadn’t quite finished. 
Maurice looked doubtfully at the melon and 
sweet biscuits and wine on the mahogany 
table. The one glass was half-full, the one 
plate had a slice of melon in it. He wondered, 
ought he to have come? Would it have been 
better form to send the rose-cuttings? He 
fidgeted on his chair. 

Then he began thinking of the last time he 
had seen this room and his thoughts stilled 
him. 

It was on the morning of the fifteenth of 
April when after the terrible discovery at 
Como he tore round to get Grant’s aid. He 


The Shot 155 

saw himself pulling like a madman at the old- 
fashioned front door bell; Alfred Swanell’s 
staring eyes as he opened the door; breathless, 
Maurice asked for Grant; Mr. Grant had only 
that moment returned from the sale at Cot- 
terell, said Swanell; he opened the door of the 
dining-room, but glancing in and seeing it 
empty, Maurice panted out, “I can’t wait— 
Mr. Demmean is shot-” Swanell’s con¬ 

ceited little visage broke up and then the door 
of the library opened and Grant, with Dr. 
Pinney behind him, appeared at it. 

“Who the devil was that ringing?” Grant’s 
face had a cold, severe look. 

At the tidings—no emotion, none at least 
that was shown. 

When they got round to Como; when they 
stood in the study and the doctor said, “He has 
been dead quite half an hour,”—Maurice could 
think only of himself and Julian Demmean; 
the other two, he felt, were thinking of Miss 
Busshe. Maurice wept; he wished not to, but 
he did. He remembered that. 

And the home-coming, the smell of the wall¬ 
flowers in the window-boxes, Coral reading a 
novel in her black dress. He saw now that was 



156 The Shot 

a bit of over-acting; the book; it wasn’t natural 
for her to be reading, having just heard of 
Mr. Demmean’s death; not even supposing 
they’d only been acquaintances. 

Now he returned to the present. Looked 
about him again, wishing he hadn’t come. 

But as the clock on the chimney-piece struck 
the quarter to nine, Grant walked in. 

He liked the rose-cuttings. Maurice’s un¬ 
easiness was at once set at rest. Grant showed 
his appreciation of the young man’s attention 
very cordially. He was seen at his best in his 
own house; it really seemed a pity that he so 
seldom invited anyone to come there. 

The real love of flowers they had in common 
gave the conversation a start-off. 

Maurice Ransom sitting, sipping old Mr. 
Grant’s choice wine, had a distinguished feel¬ 
ing which he enjoyed. It was altogether an 
enjoyable moment. He and Coral dined 
early; this evening both mistress and servant 
had been taken up with the Queen of the 
Night’s dress for the Mission Room Sale; sup¬ 
per suffered. Maurice bore this trial well, he 
was very much interested in the dress, which 
he had designed himself; but the wine and 


The Shot 157 

melon and sweet biscuits pressed on him later 
by Grant were distinctly acceptable. 

He didn’t drink wine as a rule. He knew 
he was better without it and he took great care 
of his health. Also of his earnings. He was 
putting by already for the two children he 
hoped Coral would give him some day; they 
were to have every advantage. A girl as beau¬ 
tiful as her mother, a boy just like himself. 
Plainly he saw them. 

His habitual abstinence made the present 
little let-out quite a treat. He certainly didn’t 
exceed. But unfortunately his head, where 
alcohol was concerned, was a weak one. The 
awe he felt of Grant vanished with his first 
glass. By the time he had finished his third 
he was talking for two. He was naturally 
talkative; cautious with it, though; but now 
caution went under. 

He felt infinitely agreeable, indefinitely 
clever; it seemed to him that he was making 
a delightful impression on Grant. Nothing 
else mattered; even the horror that lived for 
him in the idea of Julian Demmean’s sudden 
end faded away; his wise determination al¬ 
ways, if possible, to avoid that topic was for- 


158 The Shot 

gotten; he remembered only that he had some¬ 
thing new and interesting to say in connection 
with the affair; something, too, which would 
show Grant that Edward Demmean confided 
in him—treated him as an equal. 

“I was looking over the Kaye and Daunt 
Times before I came out,” he remarked. ‘‘In 
the Daunt Dottings column I saw something 
about Captain Demmean—what a benefit it 
would be for the neighbourhood if he were to 
leave the Army and settle down at Como!” 

Grant’s keen still face expressed no special 
interest. 

“Daunt’s hardly the place for a man of his 
age and type,” he said, as if feeling it incum¬ 
bent on him to say something. 

“Oh, he has no notion of stopping here,” 
said Maurice airily. “He’s at Como on a 
mission—a quest. He’s taken it into his head 
that his brother was murdered and he’s out to 
come up with the guilty party. Set on that, 
sworn to that. Thinks of nothing else.” 

The light that reached the table from the 
lamp on the sideboard was subdued. And 
Grant had his back to the lamp. Still, if 


The Shot 159 

Maurice’s brain had not been slightly muddled 
he must have noticed and marvelled at a 
momentary but profound alteration in Grant. 

He was sitting there, so cool, so quiet; 
motionless, as strong persons usually sit; it is 
the weak who fidget. Then—what was the 
change like? 

While travelling with Julian Demmean 
Maurice Ransom had once been in a garden 
on an island; deep was the sky-blue, deeper 
the sea-blue; the walls of the garden were lined 
with Peruvian aloes; here and there rose a 
fairy fountain; and among the wild bushes of 
ilex and myrtle they came suddenly on what 
was really a pleasure-pavilion, though it looked 
like a temple At the entrance stood a statue 
in marble. They stopped and viewed the fig¬ 
ure. Would have asked themselves which of 
the Greek gods or heroes it represented, but 
there had not been time for that, when sickness 
and giddiness seized them both; it seemed to 
be caused by the fact that the statue on which 
their eyes were fixed had moved; yes, there had 
been an inclination forwards, so slight, it was 
barely perceptible; slight indeed, but actual; 


160 The Shot 

and the portentous unexpectedness of the 
phenomenon—that, they believed, was what 
had affected their nerves, so as even to produce 
nausea. 

Afterwards they found that both the shak¬ 
ing of the statue and their own sensations had 
had the same cause; a very mild earthquake 
shock. 

Now Grant’s movement was like the move¬ 
ment of the statue; almost nothing; yet it was, 
as the statue’s tremor had been, subtly fraught 
with sinister import. A sign. Maurice missed 
the sign. But, strangely enough, its magnet¬ 
ism got to the inward part of him and he felt 
there, without having the least notion why, 
a chill, an alarm. Which completely sobered 
him; and he remembered his promise of silence 
to Edward Demmean. 

“You won’t repeat this, Mr. Grant,” he said 
anxiously. He looked rather abject. 

“Certainly not,” said Grant. He had righted 
himself. “Has Captain Demmean any definite 
ground for suspicion?” he said quietly. 

“No, oh no,” Maurice assured him. “It’s 
just a notion founded on his opinion of his 


The $hot 161 

late brother’s character. That’s what is set¬ 
ting him to work.” 

“I see. Something very natural in the feel¬ 
ing. But he’ll waste his time, I fancy.” 

“So I told him. Trust me, I said, Mr. 
Demmean met his death by his own act.” 

Grant was holding his clenched right hand 
close to his eyes, examining it as if absent- 
minded; a sinewy but firmly modelled hand it 
was; with a seal-ring of considerable value 
bearing his crest, on the little finger. The ring 
had been his father’s. 

Maurice left, uncomfortable. Why had he 
blabbed? Wasn’t it too bad not to be able to 
enjoy in moderation good wine which was 
costing you nothing without making a fool 
of yourself? Pettish with this grievance he 
kicked at the neat umbrella stand in the little 
entrance-hall of his villa; it seemed to be in 
his way. A loud voice called down to him from 
the upstairs landing. 

“The neck-line’s wrong. Come up and see.” 

Maurice was glad of the distraction. He 
found Coral before the long mirror in her 
bedroom, gloriously beautiful in her unfinished 
costume. Hilda, the maid, was holding pins. 


162 The Shot 

Maurice soon rectified the error. He had a 
splendid eye. He wanted to throw the neck¬ 
line lower in front than Coral would allow. 
She was unpersuadable. “Remember it’s for 
a Mission Room,” she said. 


Chapter XII 


R OSE SWANELL usually went to the 
evening service at All Saints’. On the 
Sunday following Maurice Ransom’s Satur¬ 
day evening call on Grant, she came out of her 
cottage and up All Saints’ Alley at her wonted 
hour. Ten minutes to seven. But instead of 
turning towards the church she set off in the 
opposite direction, past the Wesleyan Chapel 
where she hoped her brother and his wife were 
safely stowed; past the idle boat-yard; past 
Dangerous Corner; past Como; she went in at 
the gate of Rufus Lodge. 

A brand new kitchen girl came to the back 
door. The Swanells were at chapel. 

Rose always dressed quietly, but her Sun¬ 
day things happened to be new; they were 
modestly in the fashion and Rose looked 
younger and smarter than she did in the week. 
The girl admired her. When she said she was 
Alfred Swanell’s sister, to admiration awe 
was added. 

163 


164 The Shot 

‘‘I’ve called to see Mr. Grant,” said Rose 
in a friendly tone. “We are his tenants, and I 
have to speak to him about our cistern, which 
leaks. Perhaps Sunday’s an odd day to choose 
but I thought he’d be in.” 

“Yes, he’s in, Miss Swanell, but he’s in the 
music-room, and Mr. Swanell said when he was 
in the music-room he wasn’t to be disturbed. 
What’ll I do?” 

“You needn’t bother,” said Rose kindly. “I 
was his invalid aunt’s attendant, at one time, 
next-door, and he’s quite used to me. I’ll go 
and tap, and if he doesn’t say ‘come in,’ I’ll 
know he’s absorbed, and then I’ll come back 
here and wait a bit. I must see him, we’re 
swamped.” 

Nodding, she went through the partition 
door. 

The door of the music-room was ajar. A 
torrent of sound poured through. Oh, he 
would never notice her knock. Presuming on 
the urgency of her real errand (the cistern 
was only a pretext) she pushed the door and 
just entered the room. 

There was the whole width of it between her 


The Shot 165 

and Grant, as he sat at the organ with his back 
to her, playing hard. 

Rose had no knowledge of music. But she 
was intensely sensitive to it. These sounds 
seized her, bore her away; yet she saw with 
singular distinctness Grant’s figure seated all- 
powerful; above him, in graduated array, the 
solemn pipes lifting themselves aloft as if 
into another world; music-books were piled on 
either side of the player (but he was playing 
without notes) and close to his right hand a 
side-window opened to the stars. 

The rich, mournful, violent music was 
trouble, a stormy, terribly towering sea; it 
changed and was rapture, a dancing earth; 
it cleared and was peace; unimaginable heaven. 
A note soared up which to Rose was like all 
the sweetness the past had ever given her say¬ 
ing, “Remember—remember”—but even as 
she heard it, that isolated tone was silenced; 
back, back into suffering rushed the spirit of 
the music; it roared, rebelled—suddenly there 
was a crash and Grant left the organ; walked 
a few steps as if in trance; then fell on his 
knees. 

Aloud, but in a voice too low for the words 


166 The Shot 

to be distinguishable where Rose stood he 
dashed into a prayer. Stop. Was this a 
prayer? Rose had never dreamed of one like 
it. 

Oh, what an outpouring! How intimate, 
impassioned! The agonized soul strove, im¬ 
plored, fierce in strength, wild in weakness, 
humble in longing. Two words reached Rose. 
They were “pity” and “pardon.” Horrified to 
find herself a listener she turned noiselessly 
and crept away. 

She walked into the large, square, feebly- 
lighted hall; stood there leaning against the 
closed door of the dining-room. She would 
gladly have wept. The refrain of a song 
which the poor Contessa used to quaver 
through, when in good spirits, came to mind. 
“Men must work while women must weep.” 
Not so in this case. She must work, she was 
here to work, and she drew off her gloves and 
felt at her blouse-fastening, and then went 
back to the music-room which was almost at 
the end of a passage opening out of the hall 
and having a small door on the garden. 

The music-room door was still ajar; all was 
quiet; she knocked. 


The Shot 


167 


“Come in.” 

Grant was standing at a centre-table strewn 
with music and books. He had dried his 
sweating face with his handkerchief, and 
looked—himself? Not quite. But unagi¬ 
tated ; he had an expression partly tired, partly 
peaceful. 

Bose came to end peace. No conventional 
salutation passed between them. Only a flash 
from eye to eye; then Grant went to the win¬ 
dow, closed it and drew the curtains; he was 
about to lock the door, but refrained, remem¬ 
bering that if by any unforeseeable chance the 
fact of its being locked came to be known in 
the house, Bose Swanell’s character was gone. 

There they were alone together in the silent 
intimate-feeling music-room; the keen-minded, 
cultivated man of leisure and standing and the 
self-respecting young woman whose reputa¬ 
tion stood as high in her own class of life as did 
Grant’s in his. And to judge from their 
glances and movements they might have been 
American Indians of a tribe revengefully pur¬ 
sued in the old Indian wars by whites; two out 
of a handful of survivors meeting accidentally 
in some wild covert known to them both; the 


168 The Shot 

enemy everywhere; tidings to be exchanged; 
but in a manner how guarded, how stealthy! 

Grant returned to the centre-table, and took 
up and opened a folding map of the district; 
Rose stood close beside him. If anyone had 
come in he would have appeared to be direct¬ 
ing her from the map. 

The communications they murmured to each 
other were concise. 

Rose began. 

“I’ve bad news.” 

“I think I know it. This young man wants 
to quash the verdict of the Coroner’s jury.” 

“He has scraped acquaintance with my 
mother.” 

Pause. 

Then Grant said, 

“Would she speak? If she did, after all, 
what has she to say?” 

“It isn’t what she might say. It’s what she 
might show.” 

“You hoped she had destroyed—it.” 

“She let out to me this afternoon that she 
hid it somewhere.” 

Pause. 


The Shot 169 

“To what extent is she really mad?” Grant 
inquired. 

“The very question I’m always asking my¬ 
self.” 

“Where could it be hidden?” 

“What if she had buried it in the waste piece 
of ground by the allotments?” 

“Has she the strength?” 

“She can do whatever she wants to do.” 

“That is my ground- Well, that’s no 

good, however. I mustn’t stir a finger. Does 
she say Edward Demmean questioned her?” 

“She says he’s after her secret. She’s only 
lately grasped that you are now a magistrate. 
I thought I’d made all safe by telling her in 
the beginning she must hold her tongue for 
your sake. I wish I’d held mine. She’s turned 
against you—fancies she’d revenge Jimmy by 
injuring you—the magistrate. But it’s all con¬ 
fusion in her poor brain, she mixes everything 
up. I don’t think I’d fear her if it wasn’t for 
what she holds.” 

“Or says she holds. Suppose her statement 
has nothing behind it-” 

Rose shook her head. “Is the young man 




170 The Shot 

making efforts in any other direction?” said 
Grant. 

“Not that I know of. What can we do?” 

“Watch and wait.” 

And then Grant laid the map down, turned 
round, and said in an ordinary conversational 
tone, “Che sara sara . As my poor aunt at 
Como used to say. You remember?” 

“I wish I was as calm as you are,” said Rose. 
“I mean”—(as the solitary struggle she had 
witnessed on her first arrival came back to her) 
—“as self-controlled.” 

“Don’t wish yourself other than you are. 
Kindest, most steadfast, best of friends.” 

“Mr. Grant, I made an excuse about our 
cistern. So as to see you. It leaks.” 

“I’ll send Hoppner to-morrow.” 

“Don’t do that. I may want to come again 
and if you forget about it—why then—I come 
to remind you.” 

“So clever too!” 

He turned as if to break off the inter¬ 
view; his eye sought the beautiful organ built 
into the wall. “I have a queer fancy some¬ 
times, Rose,” he said. 

“What is that, sir?” 


The Shot 171 

“My admirable little aide-de-camp, don’t call 
me sir. I feel as if, supposing I were dead and 
the next man to live here kept that organ on 
and used it—the organ would know. Well, I 
mustn’t keep you.” 

Leaving the music-room Rose found the girl 
asleep over the kitchen tire, with a book Lottie 
Swanell had lent her, on the floor. She let her¬ 
self out. 

When she gets home she is not altogether 
unhappy. Her path in life diverged from 
Grant’s a long while back. Or at any rate it 
seems to her a long while. Now the two paths 
—hers and his—intersect again. 

She does not deceive herself. Aide-de-camp. 
Best of friends. Proudly she accepts these 
titles. 

She remembers a sunny summer afternoon 
when she was only eighteen, playing ball with 
little Emmy Busshe in the garden at Como, the 
Countess watching from her bath-chair. And 
Grant appears and little Emmy screams to him 
to join them, and he does. The flying ball, the 
laughter; once when the ball drops she and 
Grant both make for it; there is a collision. 

The sun, the heart-beats, the ball. 


172 The Shot 

Angrily she came to herself. Upstairs her 
mother was lying on her bed, smoking a pipe; 
Rose ran up and asked her about supper. She 
wouldn’t have any. She ate little in these 
days. 


Chapter XIII 


I F Rose fell off on this Saturday from her 
evening attendance at All Saints’, Ned 
Demmean, unwontedly for him, went to the 
morning service. Only with the idea of seeing 
Emmy. He knew where the Fir Bank ladies 
sat. 

Their seats were vacant. But perhaps Ned 
got some good among the church-goers. For 
on his return home he began abusing himself 
for his unjustifiable feeling about Grant. 

Francis Busshe might be an affectionate 
father but he was certainly a useless one. Why 
grudge his beloved the comfort and support 
she got from Busshe’s one ally? Why? It 
was mean of him. Stupid too. The older 
man’s friendship might be quite a help to him. 
He saw that. 

Ned got on slowly at chess. Grant had 
offered to give him private lessons. Ned de¬ 
clined. Felt he didn’t care to put himself 
under the obligation. Bearish. 


173 


174 The Shot 

Never mind, he now said to himself. To¬ 
morrow evening I’m due at Fir Bank. I’ll 
make amends. Tell Grant if his proposal 
holds good I’ll be thankful to accept it. Emmy 
too. I’ll try to talk to her. After all I’m her 
cousin. The plan would be to get easy with 
her; just easy; and then by degrees— Get 
easy? Yes, but that’s what’s so difficult. 
Never seeing her, except hemmed in by father, 
uncle and aunt. Nowadays. Good Lord! 

And with a frown he ruminated on the 
boundless accessibility of the other young 

Englishwomen he knew. While Emmy- 

Why, they might as well be in Spain. 

Dear old Ned! It doesn’t strike you that 
if you and Emmy Busshe were for ever strid¬ 
ing, smoking, swearing, supping, jazzing all 
over the place together, you might still be in 
love with her, no doubt, but your passion 
would lack just the ideal touch which makes 
it all-absorbing. Ah, Ned, you’re so mad on 
the girl partly because you can’t get at her. 

Anyhow, having once resolved to change his 
behaviour, he felt pleased and hopeful; and 
when Monday evening came started off for Fir 
Bank earlier than usual. One misfortune of 



The Shot 175 

his present course of life was that he had 
nothing to do. 

The bead-eyed, button-mouthed young 
housemaid was out. The old cook let him in. 
Quite hypnotized by the notion of being pleas¬ 
antly intimate all round, he said, “Don’t show 
me up, Eliza, it’s unnecessary,” and ran up 
the stairs. Eliza being rheumatic, this did very 
well. 

Fate favoured him. The drawing-room door 
was a bit open. To tell the truth if he’d had 
to open it he would have been nervous. Gently 
he entered. 

Screens are delightful things. Well chosen 
and placed, they add to the beauty of 
rooms. But only the elderly should use them. 
Why? Because for persons still moving in 
the heart and heat of life screens bristle with 
danger. 

The very handsome Fir Bank drawing-room 
screen (one of Grant’s many presents by the 
by) was this evening drawn out to its fullest 
extent so that it all but divided the room into 
two halves. You may or may not remember 
that this screen had already played a part in 
Ned’s relations with Emmy. When first he 


176 The Shot 

called at Fir Bank and she came into the room 
it had for a minute or two prevented her 
from seeing him. That accident hadn’t mat¬ 
tered particularly one way or another. But 
this time Getting sideway to the aper¬ 
ture, ISTed was still invisible to the persons in 
the room; able, however, to take in the whole 
of the picture it presented. And the picture 
was this. 

Emmy, fully dressed as the Snow Queen, 
stood at the fireplace end of the room, in front 
of the disproportionately large gilt-framed 
glass over the mantel-piece which had been one 
of her mother’s wedding-gifts. Rose Swan- 
ell, kneeling on the floor, was running her 
hand along the edge of Emmy’s skirt. Grant, 
at the other end of the room, stood leaning 
over the high narrow back of an old-fashioned 
chair. The room was lighted by a gas-burner 
on the wall near where Grant stood, and two 
more on either side of the glass. Only one of 
these was used as a rule, but on this occasion, 
Rose, in order for Emmy to see the full effect 
of her dress, had turned on the second burner. 

The two girls had their backs to the room. 



The Shot 177 

Emmy’s face and her figure down to well 
below the waist were reflected in the glass. 

So Ned had two views of the white appari¬ 
tion. Nearly all white it was. Emmy’s chest¬ 
nut hair was hidden under a peaked white cap. 
The slender, delicately draped figure with the 
snowdrop-white arms and neck seemed to rise 
from a snowdrift. The snowdrift was the 
skirt. The only colour was a clump of arti¬ 
ficial holly berries in the front of the cap. 
Under this Emmy’s thin face with its flashing 
eyes had on each cheek a flush which was like 
the finest rouge. She had crystals on her arms 
and neck and at the waist. 

Glittering and cloudy, feverish and non¬ 
chalant, fragile but not weak, like a lighted 
candle fast consuming away in a draught, but 
burning all the brighter as long as it lasts, 
Emmy made a lovely yet a troubling spectacle. 
Ned felt himself sink a fathom or two deeper 
into his love, her aspect did so seize on him; 
then involuntarily he glanced at Grant. 

Deeming himself safe, the girls having their 
backs to him, he too was wrapt in the double 
sight of Emmy. Wrapt? Ay. Where was 
Uncle Jack? Gone. A transformation had 


178 The Shot 

passed upon Grant. He was gazing at Emmy 
with the almost intolerable tenderness, the 
frantic longing of passionate love. 

Words may be misinterpreted. Not so 
looks. In his surprise Ned started back as if 
he had been shot. 

Shot? An idea came which made it impos¬ 
sible for him to announce himself properly, to 
smile, to take Grant’s hand. 

He turned and went down the stairs again. 
Old Eliza was still fiddling about in the hall. 
“Tell them,” he said in a low voice, “I no 
sooner got to the drawing-room door than I 

remembered-” He hesitated in his inborn 

horror of deceit. “The fact is I ought to be 
elsewhere,” he said. That he felt to be true. 

Eliza didn’t bother one way or another. Ned 
got into the street. 

He was unable to think as he hurried back 
to Como. Once in the study, the objects round 
him with their distinct train of association were 
a help, and he did think for a while—hard. 
Then rang. After an unusual delay Hinehley 
appeared. He was trying to learn to play 
an instrument called a melodeon, and while 
thus occupied in his pantry he had fallen 



The Shot 179 

asleep. Mrs. Grove had had to rouse him 
when the Captain rang. 

“Have you a good memory, Hinchley?” 
“Yes, sir,” said Hinchley at random. 

“You remember going to Farmer Norton’s 
sale at Cotterell on the morning of the fif¬ 
teenth of April last?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Were you there from the beginning to the 
end?” 

“I was. Mr. Demmean wished me to be.” 
“Mr. Grant of Rufus Lodge was there.” 
“Yes.” 

“Did he stay to the end?” 

“No.” 

“About when did he leave? Don’t hurry. 
Think it over.” 

“I’ve no call to think it over. Mr. Grant 
came to buy a mowing-machine, and he bought 
one and then went straight off.” 

“How long before you?” 

“An hour—good.” 

“Sure?” 

“Quite sure, sir.” 

“Thank you.” 

Hinchley went out. 


180 The Shot 

Since the peace, Dr. Pinney had taken a 
third partner and was trying hard to retire. 
Not very successfully; but he did now get his 
evenings. On this special evening he was in 
his consulting-room, which served him also as 
a den, sorting old letters, under the red-shaded 
electric lamp by his desk. 

Captain Demmean was announced. Pin¬ 
ney started up. “Hullo!” 

The salutation is a hard-worked one with 
us, isn’t it? On the present occasion it did 
duty as the heartiest of welcomes. “There— 

sit down-” Ned sat down in the patient’s 

chair. “I’ll make a brew,” fussed the doctor. 

“No. Don’t. I want to keep my head 
cool.” 

Pinney nodded, re-seated himself in his re¬ 
volving chair, and looked expectant. 

“Shall we be to ourselves?” Ned inquired. 
“You know I love your wife, but-” 

Pinney burst out laughing; he couldn’t help 
it, though Ned’s gravity was intense. 

Ned smiled faintly. 

“We’re safe in here,” said Pinney. “I love 
my wife, too, but if I hadn’t a place which, 
being one woman out of ten thousand, she 




The Shot 181 

never enters uninvited—I’m not sure I 
should.” 

Ned was sitting with his shoulders bent for¬ 
ward, knees together, feet turned in. One of 
those clumsy attitudes the body tumbles into 
when the mind is highly roused. 

“I’ve got a clue, Pinney,” he said, without 
looking up. 

“You have?” 

“And if it is a clue—and I myself have no 
doubt of that-” 

“Well?” 

“Everybody’s going to have a surprise.” 

“Do you mean you’ll be able to prove your 
brother didn’t fall by his own hand?” 

“I think so.” 

“And spot the criminal?” 

“Yes.” 

“An outsider?” 

“No.” 

“Do I know him?” 

“Yes.” 

“Name.” 

“John Grant,” said Ned; and now he looked 
up and his eyes met Pinney’s. “John Grant 
of Rufus Lodge.” 



182 The Shot 

Pinney wasn’t a successful doctor for 
nothing. Having reached sixty-three he was in¬ 
capable of being startled. He considered his 
young friend attentively for a minute, formed 
a certain conclusion and said, while from habit 
his hand went to the pocket containing his 
fountain-pen, “Look here, Ned, you’ve other 
relations you know more of than the Busshes, 
haven’t you—and plenty of friends? Any 
shooting invitations?” Ned smiled and held 
up four fingers. “Well,” the doctor went on, 
encouraged by the seeming docility of the per¬ 
son in the patient’s chair, “accept the j oiliest 
of the four and be off. Here you, run down 
with your fever, come and stick yourself in 
the tepid bath of the Thames Valley, and give 
yourself up to a gloomy hopeless task and— 
it’s a mania, my dear lad, that’s what it is, and 
if you don’t pull up I won’t answer for the 
consequences. That eternal cigarette smoking, 
too. Drop it. Take to a pipe. Your nerves 
will thank you.” 

“I knew you’d drivel on like this,” said 
Ned, sitting up and stretching himself. “Give 
me a week. One week. If at the end of that 
time I’ve made no advance I’ll do as you say. 


The Shot 183 

Go off to Scotland. Meanwhile, as I’ve come 
up here to talk, will you let me?” 

He lighted a cigarette. 

‘‘Talk away,” said Pinney, with rather a 
fierce shrug. 

“The clue I have my hand on is this. Uncle 
Jack is a sham. Grant is madly in love with 
my cousin Emmy.” 

“Rot.” 

“Wait a bit.” 

And Ned gave an account of the abortive 
visit he had just paid to Fir Bank, an account 
so vivid, simple and earnest that Pinney was 
impressed. “Well,” he said reluctantly, “if 
it’s a fact that Grant cares for Emmy in that 
way I’m sorry for him. The girl will never 
return it. But good gracious!—why suppose 
that if it is so he would be guilty of anything 
so vile—and live beside her now, helping her 
to bear up under the blow that nearly destroyed 
her—conscious all the while of being the man 
who dealt it? It’s impossible.” 

“I don’t know. Human nature’s funny.” 

“Look here, Ned, you’ll not be offended, 
will you? I believe you’re jealous. Set a thief 


184 The Shot 

to catch a thief, eh? And jealous people see 
monsters.” 

“Well,” he said boldly, “I am keen on 
Emmy. Now then!” 

Pinney didn’t say that his wife had already 
prepared him for the revelation; remarking 
after Ned’s last visit to The Elms, “Old man, 
our dear Emmy may still be Mrs. Demmean.” 
No; the doctor felt Ned’s confidence to be a 
great compliment, he seized his hand and shook 
it affectionately. “Here’s success to you! 
She’ll have a ripping good husband. Concen¬ 
trate on that idea. To me there’s a ridicu¬ 
lousness even in defending Grant. He’s above 
suspicion.” 

“Quite so. Consequently it never struck 
anyone at the inquest to ask at what time he 
left the sale at Cotterell from which he was 
mentioned by his servants as having just re¬ 
turned when Maurice Ransom ran round from 
Como to fetch him on the morning of the fif¬ 
teenth of April. No one thought anything 
about it. I have ascertained from Hinchley 
that Grant only stayed a short time at the sale. 
I see him coming straight back, taking the cut 
across the lambing fields, letting himself into 


The-Shot 185 

his own garden, going through into the Como 
garden, entering by the French window upon 
Julian in the study. The thing might be pre¬ 
meditated or it might not. Anyhow, as he is 
a remarkably able, cool-headed fellow he would 
be well equal, after he had done the deed, to 
arranging the scene in all its details. Odd he 
should leave his pistol behind; but clever 
people do make mistakes like that. Having 
finished, my gentleman walks round to the 
front entrance of Rufus Lodge and, so far as 
his own servants can see, does return from the 
sale only a few minutes before Maurice Ran¬ 
som arrived with his tidings. As for the elderly 
lady caller, either it was as you yourself sug¬ 
gested—she simply shrank from coming for¬ 
ward or she somehow saw and Grant bribed 
her. And now I know why from the first I 
couldn’t abide him.” 

Pinney had listened attentively. He shook 
his head. “It won’t do, my dear boy. This 
that you’ve been putting together in your 
haunted brain—it’s melodrama.” 

“Isn’t there a lot of melodrama in the daily 
papers, especially just now?” 

“No doubt, but men like Grant aren’t in- 


186 The Shot 

volved. He’s only got to say where he was, 
what he did, from the time he left Cotterell 
to when he got home. To bring forward his 
witnesses.” 

“You told me Leah Swanell was a remark¬ 
able woman,” said Ned, unmoved. “You’re 
right.” 

“You’ve seen her?” 

Ned sketched his meeting with Leah. “She 
knows something ” he ended. “And that some¬ 
thing I expect to get at.” 

“She’s crazy. I never said she wasn’t crazy. 
Her evidence wouldn’t be taken in a court of 
justice.” 

“I don’t want her to give evidence in a court 
of justice. I want her to put me on the right 
track. I say, doctor! I’m on at Dante. In 
English. There are notes. Grant reminds me 
of the mediaeval Italian blackguards they tell 
of. That cool, civil outside. Even his virtues. 
I hear he gives a lot of money to the poor. 
They were like that. The poor didn’t get in 
their way. Anyone who did—disappeared. 
He is half-Italian, isn’t he?” 

“As English as you are. His aunt married 
an Italian. Your flowery fancy again, Ned! 


The Shot 187 

One thing. Grant and your brother were good 
friends. Julian took to him. But I had it 
from Miss Watkyn that Grant didn’t care 
about the match. He made no secret of it, 
you see, as he would have done if all was as 
you imagine. It was just an affectionate 
relation’s natural nervousness—as such Miss 
Watkyn spoke of it.” 

“Ho, ho! Uncle Jack’s a sort of relation of 
mine, now that I come to think,” said Ned with 
a total change of manner. “He’s my second 
cousin’s uncle. Only an adopted one. Still, 
I might ask leave to call him Uncle Jack, don’t 
you think? Ho, ho! Affectionate and nerv¬ 
ous. Perhaps I shall before long.” 

Pinney felt no inclination to smile at Ned’s 
humour. The young man stretched himself 
and yawned and stood up. “When will the 
Kaye detective-inspector, who didn’t believe 
in the suicide, be home?” he asked. “Gay- 
wood.” 

“Now Ned,” fretted the doctor, “now Ned! 
What are you planning?” 

“I only want to ask him why he didn’t 
believe in it. I shan’t say a word. I’m an ass 


188 The Shot 

when I haven’t time to think, but when I have, 
I’m damned cautious, doctor.” 

Pinney still looked perturbed. 

“Gaywood’s away, you said- 

“He came back from Hastings yesterday,” 
Pinney admitted. “I saw him this morning 
in Kaye.” 

Ned looked pleased. He sat down again 
as if not knowing that he did so. 

It put Pinney out that, owing to his young 
friend’s obstinacy, he couldn’t force him to see 
how hopelessly wild were his present notions. 
He sat musing a while, then said, “It’s been 
a strange business. But Grant! Mind Leah 
Swanell doesn’t make you as mad as herself. 
It seems to me you’ve started in that direc¬ 
tion.” 

A strange business. Yes, Ned reflected; 
but how strange the doctor doesn’t know. He 
is cheerfully unaware of the part Coral Ran¬ 
som played in the drama. 

There had been a moment when Ned won¬ 
dered, Did Grant discover Julian’s intended 
treachery, and in sudden fury for Emmy’s 
sake shoot him down like a dog? No. That 
couldn’t be. The worse Julian behaved the 



The Shot 189 

better it was for Grant. What he had done 
was this. He had snatched the cards out of 
Fate’s hands just as she was about to deal 
forth a trump that would very likely have won 
him the game. Laid low the lover who was 
no longer a lover. Robbed not Emmy Busshe 
but Coral Ransom. 

But for his promise to Maurice, Ned must 
have bound Pinney over to secrecy and told 
him then and there. 


Chapter XIV\ 


T HE Mission Room Sale was over. It 
had been, as Mr. Sim told everybody, a 
screaming success. He was happy. So was 
some one else. Coral Ransom. 

At nine in the evening she was sitting alone 
in her little drawing-room; she had turned in 
there on entering the house. The Queen of 
the Night lay on the floor beside her in a silk 
bag. 

When Coral installed herself at the Sale her 
ruling idea was one which had no connection 
whatever with the spiritual welfare of the 
Daunt poor. Mr. Sim’s preaching and per¬ 
sonality had lately drawn to his church the 
great lady of the neighbourhood, Lady Alicia 
Lamely, daughter of a Duke, wife of an Earl’s 
son. She lived in one of the old houses giving 
on the Kaye side of the Park. 

Apart from the glory attaching to her birth, 
a kind which in these days perhaps has dulled 
over a bit, Lady Alicia was most noteworthy. 


190 


The Shot 191 . 

She was very clever and rather rude. Went 
where she pleased, people were afraid of her. 
She was kind to her husband who had been 
invalided in the war. 

When Mr. Sim asked Lady Alicia to open 
the sale she said, “For you I will. But keep 
people off me. I haven’t time to know all the 
good women in Daunt.” 

Coral had made up her mind to captivate 
Lady Alicia. And she did. 

She presided at the Art Stall. Maurice 
had given her a lot of beautiful photographs. 
Pausing with Mr. Sim at her elbow to con¬ 
sider the collection Lady Alicia was struck 
by Coral’s appearance. She didn’t care who 
she was. Little degrees of social difference 
which mattered in Daunt meant nothing to 
her. From her altitude she saw a level. 

Coral invariably rose to occasions. This 
time she outdid herself. Lady Alicia liked 
flattery. But it must be of the best. Coral 
could flatter like an angel—if angels do. Lady 
Alicia enjoyed herself. Roundabout, com¬ 
plexionless, frankly middle-aged, she admired 
beautiful young women when they were good. 
Of course Mrs. Ransom wouldn’t be where 


192 The Shot 

she was if she wasn’t, Mr. Sim left the two 
in close conversation. He rubbed his hands. 
He liked Coral. 

Lady Alicia was bringing up her four young 
daughters on old-fashioned lines. They were 
allowed pleasures, however. A birthday party 
was coming off and they had begged for tab¬ 
leaux. Lady Alicia didn’t profess to under¬ 
stand tableaux. Suppose Mrs. Ransom and 
her husband were to come over one afternoon 
to Old Lodge (Lady Alicia’s place) and talk 
it over. Coral pretended to hesitate. Her 
husband’s work. He was crowded up. “Oh, 
nonsense. Bring him along. It will be quite 
worth his while to be mentioned in connection 
with my tableaux!” “So it will,” said Coral 
with a musical laugh. “What a fool I am!” 
(Her report of the business pressure on Maur¬ 
ice was of course enormously exaggerated.) 

To this tune things went. And now to 
convince herself that it wasn’t a dream. Coral 
took out her purse-diary and read on the en¬ 
gagement leaf: “4.30, Nov. 1, Lady Alicia 
Lamely. Old Lodge. Kaye.” 

Yes, it was happiness, the sort of happiness 
that suited Coral. An end achieved. By Coral 


The Shot 193 

herself. More ends—endless ends—in view, 
to be achieved. Also by Coral. Confidently, 
serenely, she reposed. 

Maurice came in and kissed her and asked 
about supper. He seemed a little child sport¬ 
ing round her. She had only been waiting for 
him, she said. There was hot soup and cold 
pie. “The soup smells good,” said Maurice. 
They went into the dining-room and Hilda 
brought the soup. 

She would tell her little boy about the great 
stroke when he had done stuffing and swilling. 
Poor lad! He had only coffee to swill. 

To Ned Demmean the Sale appeared alto¬ 
gether a disagreeable affair. After all, Emmy 
wasn’t there. Another girl sold flowers in the 
dress of the Snow Queen. Rushing to Miss 
Watkyn he learned that Emmy had a head¬ 
ache. Miss Watkyn added further informa¬ 
tion. She herself was leaving Fir Bank for 
a week. An unprecedented event. But her 
last surviving aunt who lived at Brighton had 
begun to die and was anxious to see her. Ned 
liked this news. One of Emmy’s bodyguard 
would be out of the way for a bit, he reflected. 


194 The Shot 

“How will they manage without me?” sighed 
Miss Watkyn. 

“When do you go?” 

“To-morrow, early.” 

He emptied his pockets among the stall¬ 
holders and went off. 

Ned was in a state of marked tension. He 
had decided, wisely perhaps, to make no move 
towards Leah Swanell—to wait for her. In 
his restlessness he forsook this idea. Wliy not 
call and stir the old woman up? He knew 
her cottage by sight and on leaving the little 
Daunt Town Hall where the Sale was, betook 
himself to All Saints’ Alley. 

It was four o’clock, a clear, breezy afternoon. 
As he approached the Regent’s Road end of 
the alley he saw a tall man’s figure standing 
motionless beside the narrow path, the back 
turned to it; he was facing the allotments. It 
was Grant. He was eyeing the piece of waste 
ground where the allotments ended; clay and 
sand trodden and beaten together into a sub¬ 
stance almost mortar-like; rain-pools and a 
stunted bush or two and the blackened sites of 
old bonfires and heaps of refuse ready to make 


The Shot 195 

new ones—a pigmy No Man’s land it seemed. 
Grant stood there scrutinizing the spot. 

Ned came up with him. “Prospecting?” he 
said. 

Grant turned round. “As soon as building 
can be done I ought to pull down those cot¬ 
tages,” he remarked, pointing with his stick 
to the picturesque old triple block across the 
allotments, “and get a modern row in there.” 

Before joining him Ned could have sworn 
the man had had no such matter in his 
thoughts. But he spoke so absolutely as if 
out of the genuine overflow of an absorbed 
mind; simply, meditatively. 

“You’re a philanthropic landlord, I sup¬ 
pose.” Ned didn’t know why he said that. 

“I’m very much like other landlords, I be¬ 
lieve,” said Grant indifferently, and then went 
on his way with a nod which, if not exactly 
condescending, did tend in that direction. 

He was ever a rapid walker, and Ned lin¬ 
gered a moment, not sure whether to turn into 
the Swanell back-garden—or ought he to go 
into the Regent’s Road and knock at the 
front-entrance? Ned, before he decided on the 
back-way, saw Grant cross to Fir Bank, run 


196 The Shot 

up the steps to the really curious old door with 
its lantern-porch and let himself in with his 
latch-key. 

The sight did not improve Ned’s humour. 

He rapped with his stick at the Swanell 
back-door. 

Two minutes passed. He was about to try 
again when the door was opened by Rose, neat 
and composed-looking, with her quick glance ; 
she had a needle and blue thread run into the 
bosom of her dark gown. 

Either Ned had forgotten all about this girl 
or he vaguely thought of her as out at work 
all day. He had felt sure that if anyone 
opened the door it would be Leah. Somewhat 
taken aback he none the less addressed Rose 
most politely. 

“Is your mother in. Miss Swanell?” 

“No,” said Rose. 

Rose’s face was a mask. Yet Ned had an 
idea that she was annoyed. Has she told the 
truth, he wondered- 

As the thought came into his mind he per¬ 
ceived that she had. Turning his head he saw 
Leah herself coming up the alley with swing¬ 
ing steps, striking the path now and then with 



The Shot 197 

her stick, but it was evidently not a needful 
prop. 

To Ned she seemed changed. There was 
something over-animated yet more wandering 
in her glance; a flare and a flutter about her 
person; parts of her dress flew on the breeze; 
the red rose in her black hat had got loose and 
hung over the brim. If she had looked like 
this when he met her in the Park, Ned would 
not have been impressed as he actually was. 

“Running after me, Captain Demmean?” 
she exclaimed as she pushed at the rickety little 
gate. “What’ll my daughter say? At my 
time of life!” 

It was Ned’s turn to be annoyed now. He 
changed colour as Rose fixed on him a look in 
which there was dignity with a shade of re¬ 
proach. It seemed to say. Can’t you leave my 
poor afflicted mother alone? 

Leah made no offer to enter her house nor 
did she ask Captain Demmean in. She stood 
looking from her daughter to the visitor, 
maliciously enjoying the embarrassment she 
was to them both. Her mischief had some¬ 
thing childlike about it. 

Ned got rid of the queer feeling of guilt 


198 The Shot 

which Rose’s clear sharp glance had given him 
and said, turning round to Leah though his 
words were meant just as much for the daugh¬ 
ter—“You remember, Mrs. Swanell, when we 
[met by chance in the Park, you spoke to me 
about my brother in a way which interested 
me very much. You promised to come up to 
Como one day—and—renew our chat.” 

Leah’s silly lightness fell from her. 
“Chance!” she said gloomily, “there’s no such 
thing as chance.” 

“Perhaps not,” he said. “When will you 
come?” 

“To-morrow.” 

Unexpected—almost startling—but satis¬ 
factory. 

“What time?” 

“Seven, if Rose doesn’t lock me up.” 

“My mother is joking,” put in Rose. 

“Ay, it is a joke,” said Leah with one of her 
odd disconcerting smiles, “that I should have 
such a starched-up piece of goods for a daugh¬ 
ter. Who wants daughters, either? Pang on 
pang!—and then only to be told when all’s 
done that there’s another woman in the world. 
And if Those Above give you a son, the finest, 


The Shot 199 

loveliest boy that ever was born, the law people 
take him from you and kill him though it 
wasn’t his sentence. I wish I’d lived single. 
That’s a lie. Let me pass, Rose!” 

Rose fell back and without further notice of 
Ned the old woman passed into the cottage. 

Ned touched his cap awkwardly to Rose, 
she seemed about to say something but changed 
her mind. He walked away. 

Rose was working hard for Miss Watkyn. 
Benny’s wardrobe was in rather a bad way, 
nor could she buy new things; black was immi¬ 
nent and to arrive in new black on a visit to 
the dying wouldn’t do. So Rose had to repair 
and renovate. After sunset, when the allot¬ 
ments in the brief dusk gave out a strong smell 
of decay, she ran over to Fir Bank with her 
parcels. 

The housemaid told her Miss Watkyn had 
said, would she go straight up to her room 
when she came. Miss Watkyn was packing. 
Rose mounted from the basement to the dining¬ 
room floor; then up the narrow old-fashioned 
staircase leading to the drawing-room. The 
gas had not been lighted; it was dark here; 
she heard some one coming out of the drawing- 


200 


The Shot 

room; knew it was Grant and in the comer 
where the staircase turned they met. He 
stopped her and his voice said in her ear, in 
the dark, “The possibility you suggested as to 
the piece of waste ground by the allotments is 
not a possibility. It would have taken far too 
long.” Raising his voice—“Has Hoppner 
been round, Rose, about the cistern?” 

“Not yet, sir.” 

“I must speak again. Good night.” 

Thrilled, half-chilly, half-warm, Rose ran 
up to the bedroom storey. 

Grant turned off from the hall into Busshe’s 
study. Francis, standing about among his 
books, seemed to be rather haunting the room 
than living in it. 

“Jack!” he brought out on a note of relief; 
“I’ve something on my mind.” 

Grant sat down. 

“When Benny showed us Eaglet in a fancy 

dress last night- She looked so like her 

mother.” With his delicate elongated Van¬ 
dyke hands Busshe was distressfully folding, 
unfolding, re-folding a publishers’ circular. 
“Did you notice it?” 



The Shot 201 

“She does now look like her mother some¬ 
times,” Grant agreed. 

“Yes; but like her when- Jack, she’s 

terribly thin.” 

“Less thin than she was.” 

“And that hectic colour. Is she seeing 
Pinney?” 

“Not professionally. They stopped long 
ago. He says she’s mending.” 

“And he’s quite good, isn’t he?” 

“Plenty of sense. Knows Emmy, too.” 

“Ah!” Busshe dropped the bit of paper and 
ran his hands through his hair. “You see,” he 
said, “I have two lives. My own and Eaglet’s. 
Hers is mine too. If anything happened to 
her I should die. It wouldn’t matter particu¬ 
larly”—he glanced wistfully towards his desk 
—“no, it wouldn’t matter so far as I’m con¬ 
cerned,” he said in a more decided tone than 
he had yet used. “But she’s so young. 
Eighteen.” 

“Nonsense. Take my word for it, Frank, 
the child is going to be all right.” 

With a beautiful smile Busshe contemplated 
his oracle. His precious, precious oracle. The 



202 


The Shot 

man who in the mad ever-grinding world out¬ 
side Busshe’s world was head and hand to him. 

Let it not be supposed that he ever felt 
grateful to John Grant. He would as soon 
have thought of feeling grateful to his own 
soul. 

“Rose! Rose!” 

It was Emmy’s voice called out of the draw¬ 
ing-room as Rose came down from Miss Wat- 
kyn. She went in. The room was almost 
dark. Emmy was sitting in one of the win¬ 
dows. At her elbow was a bamboo occasional 
table with a Dante bound in richly ornamented 
white vellum on it. That couldn’t now be seen. 
Rose went to light the gas. “Don’t,” said 
Emmy, “I like firelight.” 

“But there isn’t any,” said Rose. She poked 
at the dull coals. A feeble flame sprang out. 
“What have you been doing?” she enquired. 

“Reading Dante with Uncle Jack.” Emmy 
got up and came and took Rose by her two 
hands. “I want you to go with me to see 
the grave tomorrow,” she said in a low voice. 

Rose’s hands stiffened in the grasp of 
Emmy’s hands. “I can’t do that,” she said. 

“Why not?” 


The Shot 203 

“You promised Mr. Grant you’d not visit 
Mr. Demmean’s grave.” 

“One can’t always keep one’s promises.” 

“One should, Miss Emmy.” 

“Talk! I must go.” 

“Then it won’t be with me. Mr. Grant was 
afraid you might make a practice of going 
there; he said it was the worst thing you could 
do, and you promised-” 

Emmy interrupted her. “What a lot you 
think of him! He’s only a man like other 
men.” 

Rose’s sallow face was red in the dusky 
flicker. “It doesn’t matter what I think of 
Mr. Grant,” she said hotly. She pulled her 
hands away from Emmy’s. “You will please 
yourself, Miss. If I didn’t think a lot of Mr. 
Grant,” she went on, after a moment’s pause, 
“I should be ungrateful indeed. He has been 
our Providence. And I’m not ashamed of it.” 

Emmy sat down with such a weary move¬ 
ment it went to Rose’s heart. Instead of tak¬ 
ing her leave, as she had meant to do, she sat 
down too. They were both silent a while, then 
Emmy said, “Rose, have you ever tried to 
picture Eternity?” 



204 he Shot 

“I don’t know that I have,” said Rose, re¬ 
lieved at the change of subject. 

“I have,” said Emmy. “I thought of a 
time and a time and a time—on, on, on—still 
it wasn’t Eternity. Then, lately, it struck me 
—a feeling which can’t die —that makes an 
eternity of its own and there are such feelings. 
But now I wonder almost- Are there? 

Rose was unable to follow the train of ideas 
in this broken confidence. The fire’s one 
flame blew out and showed Emmy’s face 
sharply, strangely fixed. Rose went and 
kneeled beside her, but as she would have 
spoken Busshe’s foot was heard on the stairs 
and Emmy jumped up. “Light the gas,” she 
called out. She ran to the open piano and 
standing dashed into one of her father’s favour¬ 
ite tunes. He must have a tune, Francis 
Busshe must, something he can hum. He did 
hum now the air Emmy was playing; he has 
an ear, he came up to the piano. “How does 
Eaglet feel this evening?” he enquired. 

“Grand—grand—grand,” she sang to her 
music. She made a kissing face at him. 

“Ah, Jack Grant is always right,” he said, 
rubbing his exquisitely formed hands. 




Chapter XV 


) Rose shook out her little breakfast-cloth 



jLJL at the back-door the morning after Cap¬ 
tain Demmean’s call the wind drove rain 
against her. Yet, seeing a man turn into soli¬ 
tary All Saints’ Alley, she lingered a moment. 
He had a shambling gait, was carefully shield¬ 
ing himself with an umbrella and carried a 
basket. 

Why, it was Hinchley. The instant Rose 
recognized him she had an inspiration. A 
scene was born in her mind, complete; she saw 
her own part in it as if written. By way of 
a preliminary she whisked into the parlour 
where a smart frock she was making lay on the 
sofa, snatched up one of several pink riband 
bows which were to go on the dress and pinned 
it in her hair. 

Pink made a wonderful difference in Rose 
and she knew it, yet eschewed the colour, 
thinking it showy if not quite vulgar. 

When she returned to the back-door Hinch- 


205 


206 The Shot 

ley had got nearly to the side-gate. She was 
going to call him in for the first time in her 
life. Then saw that it was unnecessary. Her 
cottage was his goal. 

Her smile and the great pink butterfly bow 
in the straight dark hair surprised him. “Good- 
morning/’ he said, showing his two big upper 
teeth in a return smile as he put down his 
umbrella. “Mr. Grant’s sent you and Mrs. 
Swanell a basket of vegetables. I met the 
gardener coming out of Rufus Lodge. He was 
doing a bit of a swear, he’s so busy with his 
greenhouses and he’d just sent his boy out; 
he said, ‘Mr. Grant don’t often give an order— 
if he does he expects it attended to at once, 
so I’m bound to toddle, damn it’; I said, I’m 
going that way, I’ll leave the basket and wel¬ 
come, and here I am.” 

Rose said it was nice of him. Standing in 
the kitchen which she kept like a picture, wait¬ 
ing for her to empty the basket, he said, “Ah, 
we’d turn this nice kitchen into a parlour and 
build on to the scullery for a kitchen if we’d 
our shop.” 

“You’re all talk. What about doing?” said 
Rose. 


The Shot 207 

“Doing? Ain’t I game to go this very eve¬ 
ning if you say so, to the Reverend Sim and 
ask him to put the banns up ?” 

“I daresay you are. You want a shop and 
a wife, that’s all for self. But suppose I ask 
you to do a little thing for me —no connection 
with your own interests—then would you 
do it?” 

She shook her head, looking ten times pret¬ 
tier than usual. 

“Try,” said Hinchley. 

“Very well, I will. Mother’s going up to 
Como at seven this evening. She’s been talk¬ 
ing to Captain Demmean about his brother 
and it seems he likes to hear her. You know 
Alfred’s been at me more than once to send 
her away.” 

Hinchley nodded. 

“They’re well looked after in these asylums,” 
he said. 

“But I promised father as long as I could 
live with her I would. The thing’s this. She’s 
got some flightier notion in her head than 
usual about poor Mr. Demmean and I’m 
afraid if the Captain encourages her she’ll 


208 The Shot 

commit herself in some way—give Alfred a 
chance to step in, do you see?” 

“But what can I do?” Hinchley awkwardly 
took a half seat on the table. Rose leaned 
against it beside him. 

“I’d give much to know something of what 
passes between them this evening,” she said 
thoughtfully. “You could help me to that.” 

“How though?” 

“It’ll be dark. Does Captain Demmean 
have the study shutters up?” 

“Never, while he’s there. He likes the 
French window open. He’s a fresh air gen¬ 
tleman.” 

“Then if you happen to be in the garden 
and went rather near the French window 
you’d catch what’s said.” 

“What? Listen?” 

“Well! Only in a way that might occur 
by chance.” 

“It’s considered mean.” 

“But you’d have a good purpose.” 

Hinchley pondered. He had no clear con¬ 
viction on any subject, he lived by sensation 
and habit. 


The Shot 209 

“Captain Demmean would kick me off the 
premises if he found it out/’ he said slowly. 

Rose leaned closer to him. “How could he 
find it out? You’ll be in the dark and they 
in the light.” 

“Well, but Rose! If I take the risk will it 
mean us getting married?” 

“I told you so,” she exclaimed, as if in high 
scorn. “You won’t do it for me —not”—she 
paused a moment—“not, as a gentleman 
would; chivalrously.” 

Rose hadn’t lived ten years with the Con- 
tessa for nothing. 

Hinchley was stung. 

“I will!” he declared. “But you said you’d 
give much to know what passes. Now if to¬ 
night I’ve anything worth while to tell you, 
will you give me—not much”—“Oh Hinch¬ 
ley!” — “but something that’ll cost you 
nothing?” 

“What?” 

Hinchley blushed. “A kiss,” he said. 

Ugly as Hinchley was. Rose, so long as she 
gained her end, didn’t care two straws whether 
she kissed him or not. Of course she was 
careful not to show this. She coquetted till 


210 The Shot 

Hinchley was nearly off his head, then sud¬ 
denly she gave way. The compact was made. 

At noon Leah came down to the kitchen. 
She had in her hand the black hat with the 
sorry red rose in it. 

“Make this look ladylike,” she said. “Don’t 
take the rose out.” 

Rose was slaving at the frock with the pink 
bows. She found some black net, however, 
and quickly retrimmed the hat. 

Then went back to her own work. 

Stich, stitch, stitch. 

There was a clear red sunset promising a 
fine day for to-morrow. 

At twenty minutes to seven Leah reap¬ 
peared. Her white hair was magnificently 
braided. She had her most distinguished look. 

Condescendingly she signified her approval 
of the hat. Suddenly Rose said desperately, 
“Mother, I’ve never told you. I’ve put by a 
good bit. See, mother!—you shall have it 
every shilling, to spend as you like, if you’ll 
tell me what you’ve done with—with-” 

“The tight bundle,” said Leah, with a de¬ 
liberately naughty smile. 

Rose shivered. “Yes,” she said, mastering 



211 


The Shot 

herself, “tell me, instead of going letting your¬ 
self down to a stranger and the money is yours 
—your own.” 

Leah stood holding the hat, looking at it. 
She put it on. 

“I want no money,” she said quietly, “I’m 
called.” She turned round to the window and 
through the dark looked steadily northwards. 
“I can see winter coming,” she said, “but I’ll 
not see him come.” 

“Don’t say that, mother,” said Rose, hastily, 
mechanically. 

“Why not? I’m called. I hear it in the 
wind and in the silence when the wind drops. 
In the singing of the redbreast and the ringing 
of the church-bells. Leah! Leah! Come 
away.” 

“You’re poorly. Don’t go out to-night,” 
urged Rose. 

“I’m not poorly. I’m well and strong. 
Strong enough to down a magistrate. Ha, ha, 
ha.” She crossed to the looking glass on the 
wall and surveyed herself in the hat. “I was 
a beauty once,” she said. “Dark but rare. I 
didn’t pass it on to my daughters, but I’d a 
youngest son and it seems I favoured him 


212 


The Shot 

before he saw the light, for he was my image; 
and if he did lend the burglars a hand it was 
only for a lark—the wild spirit that was in my 
Jimmy—and they killed him in the prison. 
You’ve put black over the rose. Never mind. 
It shows through. An artist who wanted to 
paint me before I got married used to call me 
Queen of Sheba. Well, I’m off to see Solo¬ 
mon. He’ll be a Solomon before I leave, he’ll 
know what no one else knows.” She turned 
round with her craziest glance, “Ta-ta, Rose. 
Send your love to anybody? No, no, you’ve 
a cold heart, girl, a cold heart. Ta-ta.” 

She was gone and Rose, heavy with stifled 
trouble, went back to the smart frock; it was 
nearly done. 

At a quarter to eight came Hinchley’s knock 
at the back door. She ran. 

No pink in her hair, the riband bow was on 
the dress now, but she had changed for the 
afternoon and looked extremely nice. As for 
Hinchley, his best suit, a new spotted tie, shiny 
boots and hair showed how important he felt 
the occasion to be. 

“Has Mrs. Swanell come home?” These 
were his first words. 


The Shot 213 

“Not yet. The parlour’s all over my work 
—come in the kitchen.” 

She rolled the old family armchair to the 
fire-corner. Hinchley seated himself. 

“I wonder she’s not in,” he said. “She was 
barely twenty minutes with Captain Dem- 
mean.” 

“She’s roving. The dark’s nothing to her. 
Well?” 

“Aren’t you going to sit down, Rose?” 

She snatched at a chair. “Did you get any¬ 
thing?” 

“I hope you won’t think I didn’t do my 
best,” said Hinchley rather dejectedly. “I 
could make out nothing till near the end. 
Except that he gave her a picture. One of 
the photos poor Mr. Demmean took in the 
Park. She made a fuss with it when she saw 
it hanging on the wall and he gave it to her.” 

“Is that all?” 

“No. But they spoke low and your mother 
kept moving about from place to place in the 
room, so most of the time I might as well have 
been where I am now. Then all of a sudden 
Mrs. Swanell brought up so near the window 
I didn’t feel very pleasant and she raised 


214 The Shot 

her voice and said, ‘I’ll tell you what it is. 
Captain. I came here with words on my 
tongue but my tongue won’t speak ’em. No, 
it won’t. Here’s what’ll do. Meet me to-mor¬ 
row—no to-morrow’s Friday—meet me on 
Saturday—(she dropped her voice and I lost 
a bit) and I’ll put in your hands what’ll speak 
louder than all the tongues in Europe.’ There! 
That’s all I heard. Excuse me. Rose, but I’d 
no idea the old lady was as mad as she is and 
why Captain Demmean cares to bother with 
her rubbish is past my understanding.” 

Rose had thought from the beginning that 
Hinchley’s dullness was under present cir¬ 
cumstances a blessing. 

“Oh, he was very fond of his brother,” she 
said quickly, “and mother’s like a child; lets 
out things she’s noticed which most people 
would keep to themselves; no doubt that inter¬ 
ests him. Where did she pretend she was 
going to meet him? And what time of day?” 

“All that I missed. Saturday. Can’t say 
more.” 

Rose’s head sank. With a jerk she raised it. 

“It’s of no importance,” she said. “Thank 
you.” 


The Shot 215 

Hinchley sat staring at her. The charmer 
of the morning was gone. An absent-looking 
smileless young woman met his view. He felt 
dreadfully bashful. He stood up as if his legs 
were not quite under his control. “I was to 
have a reward, Rose,” he said in a thick voice. 

“Oh yes, Hinchley,” she said in a business¬ 
like tone. “A kiss, wasn’t it? But you surely 
don’t expect me to come after you with it.” 

Thus encouraged, Hinchley tried to take the 
initiative. He never could remember after¬ 
wards exactly what happened. It was all so 
different from his fancies and plans. He 
couldn’t say Rose hadn’t kept her word. But 
he felt swindled, out and out. Poor Hinchley. 

Leah came in at nine and went straight up 
to bed. 


Chapter XVI 


O CTOBER’S last glory day. It is near 
noon. Down against the earth, the sun 
—king, father, lover, playmate and friend— 
leans close, close; all about lie lakes of light; 
the green earth seems in a trance to John 
Grant, who has walked round to Fir Bank, 
stands a moment at the gate; is he too en¬ 
tranced?—still enough for that; but no; his 
brain is busy. 

His back is turned to Fir Bank. He looks 
across the road at the long, narrow alley beside 
the allotments with the autumn dew not wholly 
dried from off their laughing green and scarlet 
and orange tatters; he cannot from here see 
the Swanell cottage except with his inward 
eye; it stands away to the left in its peaceful 
little garden dominated by the massive back 
of All Saints’ Church. 

Grant’s Daunt neighbours are not altogether 
wrong about him. He has qualities which in 
a high public position would have served him 
216 


The Shot 217 

well. Boldness, firmness, acuteness. And 
what can they do for him at this crisis of his 
life as a man? Nothing. 

He believes a weak-witted semi-gipsy, his 
servant’s widow, the creature of his bounty, 
couchant in the cottage yonder, to have at her 
disposal a deadly weapon she can use as the 
enemy a craze has turned her into; and just 
because of her weakness his strength is no good. 
She cannot be dealt with on rational lines. 
So he must fold his hands, tame as an infant. 

The feeling of his helplessness becomes in¬ 
tolerable as he stares up the alley. Then it 
passes and is replaced by a confidence causeless 
but most welcome. After all, he reflected, the 
menace, the danger arising from Leah’s irre¬ 
sponsible vagaries may end in smoke. As the 
smile formed itself in his mind white smoke 
twisted up into the sun-flood from a bonfire 
in the allotments. He smiled. 

Frank Busshe only took up a few minutes, 
he was in full writing swing. Grant went 
to the drawing-room. He could hear the piano. 

Emmy was feeling her way through a hard 
bit of Schumann. She broke off and he pulled 


218 The Shot 

a low seat near the music-chair. “Any news?” 
he said cheerfully. 

She looked paler than ever; perhaps her 
father’s fears, while he soothed them, had found 
a lodgment in Grant’s breast; he was suddenly 
alarmed for her; hence his specially bright 
tone. 

“Mr. Sim has been in.” 

“What for?” 

“To enquire after my headache, and he asked 
for Benny. I told him headache and aunt 
were both gone. Then he said, could he come 
one evening and talk philosophy with dad.” 

“Good Lord!” 

“He says a pinch of philosophy would do 
well in his sermons. Really, he wants to con¬ 
vert dad. He is coming. To-morrow evening. 
Before chess. Chess may be late.—I’m tired 
this morning.” Her head dropped back. 
“Will you be sure and come to-morrow eve¬ 
ning?” 

“Sure, Eaglet.” 

“Don’t call me that,” she cried out. 

“Not?” 

“No.” 

“Why not?” 


The Shot 219 

A perceptible tremor ran through her. “Oh, 
I was once a child,” she said passionately. 
“Long long, ago. It’s a silly thing to say, but 
I was so happy then. Do you remember the 
green grapes you used to give me off the vine- 
arbour when I came to Rufus Lodge? The 
green grapes. Don’t call me Eaglet.” 

She burst into an agony of tears. Accord¬ 
ing to what her aunt said, and I believe Benny 
was right, the girl since the day on which she 
had lost her lover had never been able to weep. 
Grant let her be for a while; he saw that 
Nature was doing a salutary work; but when 
a few minutes had passed he took her right 
hand away from her face and enclosed it in 
his own hand. Soon the paroxysm stilled itself, 
the icy cold, thin little hand grew warmer. 
She changed from sobs to choking sighs and 
turned round to him. 

“A storm!” she gasped, trying to smile. 

“The sun!” said Grant. He nodded to¬ 
wards the window. 

“Leaving!” 

“Shall we go too?” 

“How?’ 

“Would you like a tour to Italy?” 


220 


The Shot 


“Dad.” 

“It’d wake him up.” 

“The expense.” 

“Leave sordid details to me.” 

She closed her eyes. The hall door bell 
rang. “One of my gratis music pupils!” she 
exclaimed. 

“You must wash your face,” said Grant. 
“Have you eau de Cologne?” 

The little hand still lay in his as if too weary 
to move. He raised it and pressed it to his 
lips. He had left off kissing her when she 
was thirteen or fourteen; at that time she said, 
“I’m glad Granty doesn’t kiss me now. Some¬ 
how it’s more like him not to kiss.” 

“Eau de Cologne,” he repeated; there was 
a strange inappropriate sternness in his voice. 
“Have you plenty?” 

“An old friend gave me a whole case at 
Christmas,” she replied. “Doesn’t he remem¬ 
ber?” 

They leave the drawing-room together; he 
watches her dart up to the bedroom story. 

In the hall he passes a fat, pasty-faced, 
rather dirty girl of fifteen in a staring green 
jersey, with a music-book under her arm. The 


The S hot 221 

young person gets a surprisingly short lesson: 
this morning. 

That which weighed Emmy down was light¬ 
ened for a time at any rate. Looking at the 
sun and the earth she felt her blood stir. She 
wanted to be out. 

Ned Demmean, as he motored from his own 
gates, saw her walking slowly on the other 
side of the way. He was bound for town; his 
solicitors; he meant to go round by Kaye and 
interview the detective-inspector, Gaywood. 
When the form of Emmy caught his eye he 
backed; jumped out. 

She seemed different. More life and move¬ 
ment about her. “You weren’t at the Sale,” 
he hastily informed her. 

“No. Were you?” 

“Oh yes. I bought Miss Watkyn’s orange 
jumper.” 

“You haven’t got it on.” 

That appeared like wit to Ned as she ran 
her eyes over his person; but it was something 
better; girlish nonsense; a peep out of the old 
young Emmy. 

“I gave it to Mrs. Pinney for a hospital pa¬ 
tient,” he said. He struck himself as being dull 


222 The Shot 

and stupid out of the ordinary; that couldn’t 
be helped. 

He suggested a motor run some day—soon; 
he felt glad that disliking Julian’s car he had 
sold it and bought another. 

“Do come,” he said. His face for the first 
time in speech with Emmy broke its bonds; it 
could be very expressive and at this moment it 
was. 

“Next week,” she said. He saw the begin¬ 
ning of a smile; it was not one of her accus¬ 
tomed show smiles, either; only the beginning; 
a nod, a wave—she was gone. 

A little later Coral Ransom stood at her gate 
watching up the road the lessening shape of a 
car a good deal less smart and swift than Cap¬ 
tain Demmean’s. It was Lady Alicia Lame- 
ly’s. She had looked in to tell Coral to come 
to Old Lodge an hour earlier than the time 
mentioned at the Sale. And twice did she call 
Maurice Ransom’s wife “dear.” 

“One of your conquests,” said a loud voice 
at Coral’s elbow. 

Mr. Sim’s eyes, too, were on Lady Alicia’s 
car as it disappeared. 

“One of yours,” said Coral gracefully. 


The Shot 223 

“Lady Alicia has been saying how she loved 
your sermon last Sunday.” 

Mr. Sim had addressed his congregation on 
the subject of easy divorce. He was a born 
orator and very angry and people enjoyed 
themselves. 

“A baby could have preached that sermon,” 
he said. “It’s all so grossly obvious. There’s 
much to be said for free love”—he raised his 
voice, which was unnecessary, he always did 
it when he hoped to shock you—“but wabbly 
marriage”—he stuck out his ugly mouth— 
“piff!” 

“There goes Mr. Grant,” remarked Coral; 
he was walking in the road; staring ahead; he 
glanced round; Coral’s bow was ideal; off 
darted the hat; Sim severely touched a finger 
to his Papistical wide-awake. 

“A man I don’t like,” he said. 

Coral admired Grant. She wasn’t naive 
enough to tell Sim so. “Everybody can’t be 
like you,” she said. 

“I don’t want him to be like me. I want 
him to give an organ recital at All Saints’ for 
the Mission Room—and he won’t. Infernal 
selfishness.” 


224 The Shot 

“I wish I could play the organ.” 

She gave him one of those discreet but very 
pleasant looks which she occasionally allowed 
herself in a tete-a-tete with a man. Her good 
spirits quite got the better of her. Everything 
was so nice this morning. Sim smiled at the 
beauty benignly. An ascetic’s refined appre¬ 
ciation of the look she had bestowed on him 
came out in his farewell pressure of her hand. 

So much for the little red villa at Dangerous 
Corner. But Bose Swanell was all alone in 
her cottage at the head of All Saints’ Alley. 
Leah had refused breakfast and gone out 
early; silent; excited. The pink-ribboned frock 
was done and sent home. Bose tried to start 
her next task. She couldn’t. She came out 
into the garden-plot with the fruit-trees in their 
thinning rich-hued leaves above the green 
grass. Hither and thither she paced. Should 
she warn Grant of what Hinchley had told 
her? Had her mother really the power and 
intention of taking to-morrow a decisive step? 

Meeting Edward Demmean. Producing- 

Oh yes, she must go to Grant. He would be 
sitting on the Bench at Kaye this afternoon. 
In the evening she must go. 



The Shot 225 

Hinchley, betraying inexperience over the 
agreed-on kiss, came back to her; the vision of 
his two prominent teeth, pink skin and clumsily 
jointed figure brought back a day of giddy girl¬ 
hood, when she’d confided to little Emmy 
Busshe that she thought Hinchley resembled 
both a rabbit and a crab. And once, when 
the Contessa had tea in the garden, and Bose 
was spreading her marmalade sandwich, and 
Hinchley appeared with the brass tea-kettle, 
Emmy called out to him: “Hinchley, which 
do you like best, rabbits or crabs!” She’d 
laughed, she couldn’t help it; Emmy at six 
was so droll and Emmy shrieked her gladdest 
shriek and the tall fine looking but sad-looking 
young man beside his aunt, smiled though he 
wasn’t in the know; he always had a smile for 
the naughty Eaglet’s fun. How well the smile 
suited his keen, grave face! 

Why think of all this? 

The great red back of All Saints’ church op¬ 
pressed her. But its front looked on the river 
—the river, running to the sea. She felt rested 
when she thought how near the river was. 

Che sara sara . Strange that Grant should 
have quoted the Contessa’s favourite proverb. 


226 The Shot 

For he knew, if any man did, how to put up a 
fight against Fate. Che sara sara . A pretty 
sound the words had. 

She was getting her shoes wet on the grass. 
She stepped off it. As she did so she saw 
Hinchley coming up the alley at top speed. 
His thin legs flew out as if they hardly be¬ 
longed to him. 

Hinchley had meant to be cold to Rose for 
a few weeks. But something had happened 
which prevented him from carrying out his dig¬ 
nified intention. 

‘Rose,” he said, out of breath, “I’ve come to 
break it to you—your mother’s had a bad acci¬ 
dent. A motor-van. I was down that way, 
buying fish—it was near the Bunch of Grapes 
it happened. They said she’d only had four- 
pennorth, but they noticed as she went off she 
walked giddy.” 

“She was fasting,” said Rose, rigid. 

“Dr. Pinney was driving by and took her up 
in his car. He’ll have her at the front door 
by now.” 

Pinney and Leah were old friends. He had 
attended her in her four confinements. She 
liked him well. 


The Shot 227 

She might live some hours, he said. He 
wouldn’t wonder if she was to recover con¬ 
sciousness before the end. He’d look in again 
in the course of the afternoon. 

Alfred Swanell was laid up with a rheumatic 
knee. Rose was thankful. Lottie came down 
and stared curiously at the senseless figure on 
the bed and chattered awhile and then got 
bored and left, saying Rose could send for her 
later if she wished. 

A neighbour, an elderly woman, less uncon¬ 
genial than Lottie, came in. 

Rose watched and watched, wetting the lips 
now and then with brandy. At four Pinney 
returned. As his step came up the stair Leah’s 
eyes opened. “There’s the doctor,” she said 
quietly. 

Pinney sat down by the bed. Rose stood at 
the foot. 

“Doctor,” said Leah, “I want to see Captain 
Demmean.” 

“You can’t, mother,” said Rose. 

“Why not indulge her?” said Pinney. Evi¬ 
dently Rose’s physical ministrations to her 
mother were of the first order, but he felt her 
mental attitude to be hard. “Captain Dem- 


228 The Shot 

mean is very good-natured. It’s only a few 
steps. Or you might tell my man—send my 
car.” 

Rose felt herself change colour. She folded 
her arms and said in a low voice, “You’ll act 
as you please, doctor, I shall have nothing to 
do with sending for him. Captain Demmean’s 
notice over-excites my mother.” 

“Send for him, doctor,” pleaded Leah. 

She avoided looking at Rose. 

Pinney ran down. In the kitchen he found 
Hinchley, who had come to inquire. Hinchley 
was standing by the fire, going over in his mind 
the kiss scene, trying to imagine exactly what 
he ought to do if a like opportunity were to 
arise in the future. Hailed by Pinney as a 
messenger he informed the doctor that Captain 
Demmean was in town, wouldn’t be back be¬ 
fore dinner. 

“She’ll be gone by then,” said Pinney. 

He went back and told Leah. Rose low¬ 
ered her stern fixed eyes. All at once Leah 
seemed quite indifferent on the subject. 

“Is there anything else we can do for you?” 
said Pinney. 


The Shot 229 

“Give me that photo off the wall,” said Leah. 
“Oak Dip. Pretty place. Pretty place.” 

This was the picture Hinchley had spoken 
of, Julian Demmean’s photograph of Leah’s 
favourite spot in the Park. She had fallen into 
raptures over it in the drawing-room at Como 
and Ned, having found among Julian’s things 
a whole collection of his own photos, gave this 
one to the old woman. 

She was unable to take hold of the picture. 
It had a plain gilt frame and grey mount. 
Pinney held it for her. “Pretty place,” she 
repeated. She was seized with a cough. Not 
a chest cough, it came from lower down. Pin¬ 
ney, kindest of men, put a hand to her back. 
Then she whispered—and in an astonishingly 
clever way blended coughing and whispering 
together so that her whisper was drowned to 
Rose—“There; tell Captain it’s there.” 

With an effort she laid a thumb on the hag¬ 
gard figure in the foreground of the blasted 
oak. She shot a speaking glance into Pin¬ 
ney’s eyes; he looked his comprehension; she 
sank back satisfied. 

“I’m dying,” she remarked, in a minute or 
two. 


230 The Shot 

“Not frightened, Leah-” said Pinney. 

“No, no.” She smiled, staring up. “They’ve 
put the light in the window.” 

After the death Rose was in a fever. No 
one else might touch the body. She laid out 
all that was left to sight of her mother in the 
fine linen reserved for the purpose; with the 
last dahlias from the garden at head and feet. 
The weirdness of Leah’s thinness was gone. 
On the skin hard and dry as a dead leaf which 
cracks at a touch, a change had passed. Leah 
lay there calm, in beauty supreme. 

She gave you not of her beauty, Rose. She 
did give you of her cleverness. But she has 
outwitted you at the last. Little dreaming 
that it was so, Rose as soon as she thought 
Grant would have returned from his magis¬ 
terial duty at Kaye hurried to Rufus Lodge. 
She had a flat interview with her relations. 
Then it seemed natural that she should on 
this occasion ask to see the patron of the Swa- 
nell family. 

And while she was giving Grant the news 
which set him temporarily at rest; telling him 
how her mother had passed; quite peaceful, 
asked at first for Captain Demmean but soon 




The Shot 231 

forgot all about it; said not a word better un¬ 
said—while Rose told this story Ned Dem- 
mean, getting back to Como, found Pinney 
smoking his pipe over the study fire. 

Ned looked agueish and cross. Right glad 
however to see the friendly face. “I was dis¬ 
appointed in Gay wood/’ he said, throwing him¬ 
self into the first chair handy. “Sensible, hon¬ 
est fellow, but limited. He argues solely from 
the magnolia. Satisfied himself that the mag¬ 
nolia had been used as a ladder. In which 
case there was obviously some one who used 
it. I expected a summing up of the whole 
affair from an original point of view. And 
others who ought to know were just as sure 
that the magnolia had only got battered in the 
storm.” 

“I have a message for you from Leah Swa¬ 
ned,” said Pinney. 

“The old devil! How she turns and doubles 
like an old fox! I’ve a good mind to-” 

Pinney held up a finger. 

“She’s dead.” 

When Ned had heard the doctor’s account 
of Leah’s end he decided that he would visit 
Oak Dip before the world was abroad early in 



232 The Shot 

the coming morning. “Though she may have 
been making a fool of me even on her death¬ 
bed,” he said moodily. 

“I don’t think she was.” 

“In case there’s anything I’d better have a 
witness. I’ll get Ransom to go with me.” 

Pinney nodded approval. “I’ve a full day 
to-morrow,” he said. “Up to dinner-time. 
Come and dine.” 

“Due at Fir Bank.” Ned had rather a 
sheepish look. 

“Fir Bank’s an early house. Finish your 
evening with me. Bring your news.” 

Ned said he would. 

After dinner he lighted a candle and went 
up to Julian’s bachelor bedchamber at the top 
of the winding staircase above the study. He 
noticed how noiselessly the masked door in 
the wall opened and shut. He himself slept in 
one of the spare rooms, it was the one particu¬ 
lar in which his existence at Como didn’t match 
with his brother’s. 

The room was like an old maid’s. Julian 
had altered nothing. He looked on himself as 
camping there. Used to joke with Maurice 
Ransom about his surroundings. 


The Shot 233 

The old-fashioned bed, the tall wardrobe 
with glass in the door, the fussy carpet; even 
the papering and painting were eloquent of 
women—elderly woman. There were three 
pictures each of which helped towards the gen¬ 
eral effect. The large brass nail over the bed¬ 
head on which Julian had kept his key of the 
garden wall door into the lambing-fields and 
the field gate into the road was still there. The 
only visible trace of his sojourn in the room. 

Ned walked to the window. It was a dark 
night, but he knew just how the great mag¬ 
nolia, now nearing its skeleton phase, looked, 
as it crept up and around; he opened the win¬ 
dow and looked out. 

What a silence! A cold, thick smell. The 
weather was changing. 


Chapter XVII 


? a quarter to seven on this autumn mom- 



JLjL ing, which has drizzled and will drizzle 
again, Oak Dip has no magic. The trees are 
like lifeless copies of themselves. A grey sky 
seems almost to sweep the green of the sodden 
grass. A quarter of a mile away, over the lit¬ 
tle land-lift, Ned Demmean’s car and lad are 
waiting in one of the main roads through the 


Park, 


The two young men who, not without diffi¬ 
culty, have got up from the rotten cavernous 
heart of the old oak Leah Swanell’s deposit, 
stand looking blankly at it and at each other. 

When first seen the mysterious object pre¬ 
sented itself as a tight long-shaped roll done 
up with thick string in an old mackintosh. The 
string having been cut the contents were found 


to be- 


A woman’s shabby brown dress of some silky 
material. No pocket to it. 


234 



The Shot 235 

A black satin mantle in better condition. 

A pair of grey suede gloves not much worn. 

A squashed green straw hat with black 
cock’s plume. 

A red plush bag with a purse in it contain¬ 
ing a pound note and a shilling. 

A wadded petticoat. 

The backbone, so to speak, of the parcel was 
a handsome, brand-new man’s umbrella. 

The costume of the elderly lady who called 
at Como on the morning of the fifteenth of 
April had been too faithfully described by 
Peggy Grove and Benedicta Watkyn for any 
doubt to be possible. The searchers had here 
her outer garments. Wrapped round Julian 
Demmean’s missing umbrella. 

Ned was labouring under a feeling of weari¬ 
ness and repulsion. He seemed unable to cope 
with this new factor in the problem. For one 
thing he had left his bed with a splitting head¬ 
ache. 

Maurice looked pale. Getting up early was 
obnoxious to him. But that was not all. The 
discovery of these things did undoubtedly sug¬ 
gest, though in the vaguest fashion, that Julian 


236 The Shot 

Demmean had met with foul play. And Mau¬ 
rice hated this idea as much as Ned hated the 
idea of suicide. 

Besides, if this find necessitated a fresh pub¬ 
lic inquiry might not Coral’s name somehow 
have to come out? 

He fought off the idea that the bundle meant 
much. “That old witch, Mrs. Swanell, was 
mischief personified,” he said. “It’s my belief 
this is simply one of her mad pranks. The 
last.” 

Ned silently viewed the puzzling yet sick- 
eningly commonplace head all sordid and soiled 
on the fresh green grass. He thought of Rose 
Swanell, the clever, superior young woman 
with her guarded manner and hostile glance. 
Why or in what connection he scarcely knew; 
but so it was. 

Grant. Grant. The notion of Grant’s guilt 
had gone on growing in his mind without any 
obvious aid from outside evidence. His name 
never passed Leah’s lips. Ned had listened 
for it in vain. There had been an allusion to 
a magistrate who ought not to he on the bench 
but in the prisoners’ dock. But that might be 


The Shot 237 

only part and parcel of the wonted gabble of 
her delusion. 

Grant. Grant. A dream came back to Ned 
he had had in the night and forgotten. He 
had dreamed he was hurrying through a long 
passage which as fast as he approached what 
seemed to he the end of it shot forward anew, 
interminably leading him on; till at last his 
labouring feet were stopped before a tall house- 
front with a large door. He knocked at the 
door, which was opened by some one who im¬ 
mediately sprang behind it. The house van¬ 
ished. A gigantic wolf confronted the dreamer; 
he felt a stick in his hand and raised it; the 
wolf leaped; the teeth were in Ned’s neck and 
then he knew it was Grant; furious, he tried 
to call out the man’s name; woke, breathless. 

The dream was a natural offshoot of his sus¬ 
picions. Suspicions? No. He was privately 
certain. And sick to death of poking and grop¬ 
ing he now came to a sudden resolution. He 
would go to Grant; try a face attack. 

His bitter disgust with the yield of the 
blasted oak tree increased. He turned to Mau¬ 
rice. “Will you do me a favour? Motor on to 


238 The Shot 

Kaye with the bundle and leave it at Gay- 
wood’s private house. It won’t take you 
twenty minutes. Don’t go to the police sta¬ 
tion. I’ll write a few words.” 

It struck Maurice that perhaps Inspector 
Gaywood would wish to see him. Then he 
could give his view of the matter. A gain. He 
eagerly undertook Captain Demmean’s com¬ 
mission. 

Ned went home; a cup of strong tea with 
rum in it relieved his head; at ten o’clock he 
was at Rufus Lodge. Alfred Swanell was still 
laid up. His wife said Mr. Grant had gone 
out on business. They expected him back 
about five. 

The day had to be got through. Ned mo¬ 
tored up to town; paid his tailor a visit; called 
on a charming family in the Regent’s Park 
district, old friends who were so glad to see 
him that he felt ashamed; came back through 
warmth and still a little rain. 

Hinchley brought him a letter. Mr. Gay- 
wood had called, he said; was disappointed not 
to find him; he left this letter, Hinchley was 
to be sure and deliver it as soon as Captain 
Demmean returned. 


239 


The Shot 

Dear Captain Demmean, 

May I beg that you will keep the fact of 
your discovery close for a bit? I am not men¬ 
tioning it to anyone. I have my reasons. Three 
possibilities seem to come under considera¬ 
tion. 

1. A merely spiteful trick on the part of the 
old gipsy. Not affecting the main features of 
the case. 

2. A double crime. 

3. A gipsy pal of Leah Swanell’s may have 
got her to assist in an attempted robbery at 
Como. I must say I think this is likely to be 
the solution. I argue from the magnolia; the 
state of which, if you accept Nos. 1 or 2, re¬ 
mains in my opinion unaccounted for. I will 
call early on Monday morning and shall hope 
to find you in. 

Faithfully yours, 

T. Gaywood. 

Ned ran inattentively through this letter. 
All day the feeling had been strong on him 
that the final scene in the smothered drama of 
his search for the truth was waiting for him 


240 The Shot 

in John Grant’s house; his mind refused to 
work in any other direction. 

Between five and six he went round again to 
Rufus Lodge. He knew quite well what he 
meant to say. Yes, Mr. Grant was in. After 
a moment’s hesitation, Lottie Swanell, remem¬ 
bering the easy terms her master had been on 
with “poor” Mr. Demmean, took Captain 
Demmean to the dining-room where Grant 
was, and simply announced him. 

There were three sorts of light in the room. 
The red fire. The yellow lamp. The white 
remaining daylight; and in that Grant was 
standing, at the open window. 

He turned round; advanced with his hand 
out. Ned avoided the hand. “I’m bound to 
tell you, Mr. Grant,” he said, “I don’t come 
as a friend.” 

Grant said nothing. They were now oppo¬ 
site to each other with the dining-table, a 
round one when, as now, the leaf wasn’t in, be¬ 
tween them. Ned was flushed and precipitate; 
but for a wonder he succeeded in sticking to 
his programme pretty well. 

“A discovery has been made,” he said, “in 
consequence of a message sent to me through 


The Shot 241 

Dr. Pinney by old Mrs. Swanell when she was 
dying. I have found—young Ransom was 
with me—a parcel of female clothing hidden 
in the hollow old tree at Oak Dip in the Park.” 

Grant never stirred. No sound came from 
him. But he turned white—terribly white. 

“Now I must tell you,” Ned went on, “I 
have thought from the first my brother was 
murdered.” 

Grant stood looking across the table. His 
keen strong-glancing eyes were fixed on Ned’s 
face. Attentively, warily. Only his abiding 
and almost appalling loss of colour showed 
how much he was moved. 

“Have you any objection,” said Ned, more 
embarrassed by the other man’s silence and 
manner than he would have thought possible 
beforehand—“to telling me how you were occu¬ 
pied on the morning of the fifteenth of April 
last, between the time after your short stay at 
the Cotterell sale and the time when Maurice 
Ransom ran to your house and was told you 
had only just returned?” 

“Every objection,” said Grant. He drew a 
long breath which seemed to ease him. A faint 


242 The Shot 

shade of his natural colour returned. “What 
right have you to cross-examine me?” 

“I think I have a right,” said Ned fiercely. 
“So much so that I’ll ask another question. 
How did you feel when reading Dante with 
my cousin Miss Busshe you came in the de¬ 
scription of Hell on this passage: 

Fix thine eyes beneath; the river of blood 
Approaches in the which, all those are steept 
Who have by violence injured! 

And later Dante says how the Centaurs were 

Aiming shafts 

At whatsoever spirit dares emerge 

From out the blood more than his guilt allows- 

Grant closed his eyes. He said something 
to himself. Ned hated, as a rule, the sight of 
suffering. But he didn’t mind seeing Grant 
suffer. 

“I have a right to come forward,” he went 
on, “not only as Julian Demmean’s brother 
but as Miss Busshe’s near relative. I am very 
deeply interested in my cousin. I propose to 
open her eyes to the true character of her jeal¬ 
ous uncle.” 


The Shot 243 

Grant’s teeth had been close set. They 
parted with a jerk. His face showed in rapid 
succession stupefaction; amazement; a flash as 
if of hope—it died out; he was silent a moment; 
looking fixedly down, then came round the 
table right up to Ned and said quickly and 
low: 

“Man!—Man!—she did it. And God for¬ 
give us both for a damned pair of idiots, from 
the moment when Ransom told me you were 
out to spot the person who shot your brother 
I thought you suspected the truth and were 
hunting her down. She did it.” 

“She?” Ned gasped; glared. “Who?” 

“Eaglet — Emmy — Emily Busshe — your 
cousin. She did it.” 

“Did what?” 

“Shot him—shot your brother. Lord of 
Mercy look on us! Take it on myself ? Impos¬ 
sible. She’d be up like a little lion.” 

“You’re mad,” Ned protested (while all the 
time a breaking voice cried out in him, it’s true, 
it’s true). “The slender girl. How could she 
handle a pistol?—shoot a man through the 
heart? Pinney said it was done by an ex¬ 
pert.” 


244 The Shot 

“I taught her to shoot,” said Grant slowly, 
“when she was only thirteen. She begged me 
to.” 

Ned pulled out one of the chairs which were 
rammed under the table, sat down, leaned for¬ 
ward, his elbows on the table, his head between 
his hands. 

Beside the chimney-piece hung an almanac. 
Benedicta Watkyn had given it to Grant at the 
new year. One of those which presents the 
figure of each day large on a single leaf; you 
tear a leaf off every morning. 

Grant’s eye lighted on the almanac. It was 
still at yesterday’s date. He was nerving him¬ 
self to ask the question on the answer to which 
Emmy’s fate now appeared to hang. As if 
glad of the pretext for delay he went and tore 
a leaf off the almanac and threw it in the fire. 
Then returned. He leaned back with his hands 
behind him on the table. 

“Have you got the bundle?” 

“No.” 

“Where is it?” 

“I sent Ransom with it to Gaywood, the de¬ 
tective-inspector at Kaye.” 

Actuated by an unaccountable and purely 


The Shot 245 

mechanical instinct Grant walked back to the 
almanac, tore off another leaf, making the date 
to-morrow’s, threw the leaf in the fire. He 
came back and resumed his former place and 
attitude. 

“Was there a handkerchief,” he said, “with 
her name embroidered on it in full? ‘Emily H. 
Busshe?’ ” 

“What is her second name?” said Ned. As 
if that was something very important. 

“Hegel.” 

“No. There was no handkerchief. Not a 
handkerchief. No.” 

“But did you thoroughly overhaul the con¬ 
tents of the bundle?” 

“Yes. Ransom and I did. And Ransom’s 
sharp. There was no pocket in the dress. 
Nothing in the bag but a purse with a pound 
note in it and a shilling. A pair of gloves. 
No handkerchief. No handkerchief.” 

“Then there’s good hope yet,” Grant ex¬ 
claimed. Light came into his face. 

As a child Ned had read a tale of two men, 
fellow-passengers for South America, who on 
board ship had a bitter quarrel. They agreed 
to fight it out on arrival; meanwhile they didn’t 


246 The Shot 

speak. Their ship took fire and the end of it 
was the deadly enemies found themselves alone 
together on a small island—the island of a 
young boy’s tale book. 

Back to Ned as he sat here came the old de¬ 
scription of the hating couple standing staring 
out to sea; desolate, all was desolate; they saw 
bits of wreckage bobbing about; and turning 
to each other uttered at the same moment the 
same word, “Gone.” 

For him too there had been a wreck. He 
seemed to be looking out at a desolate sea; his 
hostility towards Grant was swallowed up with 
much else. And as with those castaways on 
the island, was not an alliance forced now on 
the two men who loved Emmy? The casta¬ 
ways were brought together by their interests; 
he and Grant by Emmy’s. 


Chapter XVIII 


G RANT drew his chair closer. He spoke; 

his voice had tone; yet not a word could 
have been heard half a yard off. 

“I did get away from the sale at Cotterell 
quite early,” he said. “Coming home I took 
the cut by the lambing-fields. No one knew 
when I came back. Your brother had been 
unreasonably put out by his failures in our be¬ 
fore-breakfast match. He had always con¬ 
cealed his superstition about pistols from me. 
But it came out then. He said he had an un¬ 
lucky one. I thought I would propose a second 
match, exchanging pistols. I went through 
into the Como garden from my own and up 
to the open French window of the study, I saw 
at once your brother lying dead. You know 
of course that he was extraordinary sensitive 
to heat. Though the warmth of that day was 
only spring warmth he had on in the house a 
white linen suit, the loose jacket was open, 
there was blood on his shirt. 


247 


248 The Shot 

(So long had Grant carried these things in 
his mind, ever, ever consciously there, dammed- 
up; that now an opening was made they came 
forth, not with any hurry indeed, but unhesi¬ 
tatingly, as if by a self-working process.) 

“I went in and there I saw a person I didn’t 
recognize—a woman. She was raising herself 
from the floor as if coming out of a swoon. 
She spoke and I knew it was Emmy. She 
said, ‘I’ve shot him. I’ve killed him. He’s 
dead.’ 

“Emmy is a clever actress. First-rate at 
impersonations — mystifications. I’ve never 
cared about her doing it. But the child has 
had so few amusements. On the fifteenth, 
when she had ruled that she and your brother 
were not to meet, she took it into her head to 
visit him in disguise. It was a bit of mad fun 
planned by a young girl half beside herself with 
happiness. She got Rose Swanell to help her. 
Rose had had some clothes and other articles 
left her by a relation of her father’s, a retired 
dressmaker living at Newhaven. From among 
these clothes they selected the things you saw. 
The make-up was Emmy’s work entirely. She 
is an artist at it. She wrote a feigned name on 


The Shot 249 

a card, she assumed the character of a new 
under-matron from the Orphan Girls’ Home 
at Kaye. She and Julian had visited this 
Home together. She pretended to be collect¬ 
ing money for a grand piano for the girls’ 
concerts. 

“She was perfectly successful. Your brother 
gave her a guinea, then was evidently in a 
hurry to get rid of her. He showed her out 
himself at the front-door. 

“Emmy hadn’t gone far along the road 
when her spirits failed her. The joke no 
longer seemed a joke. She couldn’t endure 
having been dismissed. You know she is im¬ 
pulsive. She returned, went round the back 
way and wandered down the garden. She 
hoped to find your brother there. She was 
shy, she said, of going to the study. It came 
to that, however. She made her way up to the 
house, trying to whip herself up into the comic 
vein—to think how she would break in on Jul¬ 
ian and triumphantly laugh at him. Still, she 
felt miserable. The study was empty. On the 
secretaire lay a letter addressed to herself. The 
sight of it revived her. As he wasn’t to see 
her Julian had been writing. She seized on 


250 The Shot 

the letter. He wrote, breaking with her—it 
was to have been delivered early the next morn¬ 
ing. Pardon me—it was a wretched letter. I 
read it. Short. That was its one merit. Your 
brother announced to Emmy that he was leav¬ 
ing England with a woman who was all the 
world to him—a married person. He gave no 
name. Probably it was some one he had known 
before he knew Emmy. Pardon me again— 
there wasn’t a sign of decent feeling in the 
composition. Where apology was intended— 
only insult was achieved. A fatality in the 
nature. Emmy had the letter in her hand 
when Julian came down into the study from 
his room above. She made herself known. She 
reproached him with only one thing—the base¬ 
ness of having gone on behaving to her as an 
ardent lover after deciding to leave her. He 
had seemed at first stunned by his surprise. 
But when she said that, he smiled. A nervous 
smile, I think. Involuntary. 

“Emmy couldn’t reason like that. She said, 
on his smiling, her blood surged up in her 
head; behind her eyes; she saw Julian’s pistol 
lying handy—caught it up—fired—and fell 
fainting.” 


The Shot 251 

Ned started up; a heavy oath was choked in 
his dry throat; he thrust his hands in his 
trouser pockets; he moved his feet as if they 
needed steadying. 

“Poor angel! Poor darling!” 

The old-fashioned soberly appointed dining¬ 
room, with its curious personal air of honour¬ 
able pride, suddenly became urgently visible. 
And so did, through a dusk-gathering window, 
the blackness of drenched garden-trees. Lean¬ 
ing against the mantel-piece he wished he 
hadn’t given way like that. Then he noticed 
that Grant was staring as if at something 
slightly removed, something he alone saw. He 
seemed absorbed. Ned hoped his outbreak had 
passed unobserved. He slipped back to his 
chair. Grant went on: 

“Of course, the first thing I did was to exam¬ 
ine your poor brother’s body. He had been 
dead some time. Pinney said death was in¬ 
stantaneous. The revolver lay near his hand. 
Emmy, the instant she had fired, before losing 
consciousness, must have thrown it from her 
in horror. It was the position of the revolver 
suggested to me the possibility of saving her 
from the results of an act which in my opinion 


252 The Shot 

she did not commit. It was one instant’s mad¬ 
ness. I saw how well the death might be taken 
for suicide. I never touched the revolver, sim¬ 
ply left it where it was. I burned your broth¬ 
er’s letter and Emmy’s card. All this while 
the dreadful figure—Emmy and not Emmy— 
sat by shivering, watching with blank looks. 
After the first outcry she said nothing. 

“The storm began. I took advantage of it. 
Concealed under the large umbrella out of the 
hall I got Emmy back to the Swanell cottage. 
The road was swept clear, we didn’t meet a 
soul. I was obliged to take Rose Swanell into 
my confidence. A brain and a heart there. 
She dearly loves Emmy. 

“When Emmy’s faculties came back she was 
wild to give herself up to the police. I tried 
to convince her from my own fixed conviction 
that she wasn’t morally responsible for the act. 
That argument failed. But when I told her 
that if she did as she wished her father would 
never survive it, she gave way. T mustn’t kill 
two men,’ she said. 

“Rose thought her mother was out. But 
Leah was asleep in her own room. Emmy’s 
disguise was taken off and the things were 


The Shot 253 

rolled up in a bundle. Rose meant to burn it 
at night. As the storm subsided I had to leave 
Emmy in her charge, I was afraid of being 
seen. I went home, let myself in at the front¬ 
door and the servants naturally supposed X 
came straight from Cotterell. Rose got Emmy 
dressed, the child showed great courage, said 
she would take the secrecy as part of her pun¬ 
ishment. When the storm was over Rose went 
with her to the gate of Fir Bank. She watched 
her in and at the basement door saw her fall. 
A servant girl screamed the news of your 
brother’s death through the house from the op¬ 
posite door and it was too much for Emmy. 
Rose ran to help. She was about twenty min¬ 
utes gone. Meanwhile Leah Swanell came out 
of her room, went to Rose’s room to look for 
her and found and removed the bundle. She 
hid it on the premises at first, but Rose never 
knew where. In her despair she told the old 
woman that she couldn’t do a worse turn to 
the man to whom she owed her bread—myself 
—than to let the bundle get into strange hands. 
Leah was obstinate. 

“Later she must have taken her find round 
to Oak Dip. Where it would apparently have 


254 The Shot 

rotted unthought of, unseen, but for Leah 
hearing that I had been made a magistrate. 
That turned her vague perversity into active 
malice. Leah knew nothing. She had only 
suspicion and imagination to prompt her. 

“The woman your brother had arranged to 
go away with has never made a sign. 

“About the handkerchief. It was one of a 
dozen Miss Watkyn embroidered years ago. 
Who else would have put the full name? Emmy 
thought that having half—only half—recov¬ 
ered her senses she tried to wipe away the 
blood on the shirt with this handkerchief. 
Then, seeing someone coming up the garden 
(myself) it seemed to her she remembered 
thrusting the handkerchief away. A surface 
instinct of concealment. She said she believed 
the dress had no pocket, but she was afraid 
she hid the handkerchief up a sleeve. I was 
a fool to ask if you had found it. Of course, if 
you had—your eyes must have been opened. 
I'm inclined to think she was under a delusion 
about it, dreamt that detail, perhaps, while 
she lay ill in bed. Rose Swanell believes she 
had no handkerchief on her when she left All 


The Shot 255 

Saints’ Alley. And without the handkerchief 
the bundle incriminates no one.” 

There was a silence before Ned said, “Was 
the second pistol yours?” 

“No. Your brother must have fetched it 
from the cabinet.” 

“I don’t understand about the two reports 
that were heard. It was supposed that poor 
Julian sent a bullet through the eyes of Wel¬ 
lington’s portrait before shooting himself. But 
—things being as they were—there must have 
been in reality only one shot.” 

“Yes. Who heard the two shots? Robert 
Smith, the deaf old jobbing gardener. Deaf 
people when they do hear a loud sound some¬ 
times get it doubled. It’s the unusualness of 
the sensation gives the nervous system a twist. 
Mrs. Grove could only swear to one shot. 
There might have been two, she said. She 
hadn’t her full faculties. My idea is that the 
damage was done to the portrait before your 
brother had his breakfast. He came in red-hot 
with his vexation—you can’t conceive how 
vexed he was—when one thinks of the business 
he had in his mind that morning it seems in¬ 
credible—but-” 



256 The Shot 

Ned interrupted. “I understand perfectly/’ 
he said. “Julian all over.” 

“Well then, you see, he got a second pistol 
from the cabinet and wreaked his ill-temper on 
the portrait he objected to. Either Peggy 
Grove and Hinchley were both at the moment 
out of hearing or if the shot was heard we were 
taken to be still amusing ourselves.” 

“Emmy, I suppose, didn’t notice anything 
about the portrait-” 

“I asked her that. No. She said she 
wouldn’t have known whether there were pic¬ 
tures on the walls or not.” 

“The key-” 

“Coincidence? After all, keys do get lost.” 

“And Gay wood was wrong about the mag¬ 
nolia.” 

“Obviously.” 

“He’s pigheaded. He wouldn’t entertain 
any idea that failed to take in as an item de¬ 
scent by means of the magnolia.” 

“The police are like that. They make up 
their minds on one detail and turn it into a 
centre. But Gaywood’s mistake is our gain.” 

Ned sighed as he nodded. The next thing 




The Shot 257 

he had to say was already in his mind. It came 
out in a minute. “I knew about my brother’s 
intention,” he said. And he spoke of the much- 
wandering letter. He guarded Coral Ransom’s 
name. Easily; for on that point Grant was 
incurious. 

“Well,” he said, as if winding up the whole 
matter, “y° u weren’t altogether wrong, you 
see, in fixing your suspicions on me. My part 
at the inquest was easy. I had only to play 
second fiddle to Pinney. No false statement 
was necessary. But I am, of course, an ac¬ 
cessory after the fact.” 

“If you’ve committed a crime,” said Ned 
eagerly, “all I know is in your place I should 
have done the same.” 

“The question is not—was it a crime?—but 
to quote the First Napoleon—was it worse than 
a crime ? A blunder. ’ ’ 

He bent his eyes before him with a haggard 
concentrated look. “Supposing-” he be¬ 

gan; but at the same moment Ned had opened 

his mouth. “Let us hope that-” came from 

it. Each man stopped to let the other speak. 
Then Grant gave a sort of laugh and a rest- 




258 The Shot 

less toss of the head. “Hope!” he said. “That’s 
the word. Hope! That’s the thing.” 

He seemed to succeed in banishing the evil- 
boding thought that had troubled him. “I’d 
like to know one thing. Captain Demmean,” 
he said quickly. “There is an idea in the air at 
Fir Bank of wintering in Italy. It must be 
acted on at once. The discovery at Oak Dip 
is bound to reach Emmy’s ears sooner or later 
if she remains in the neighbourhood. I don’t 
wish that. I shall try to get the family off early 
next week. Show them Florence and Borne 
and settle at some health resort for the win¬ 
ter. The cheapest are the best. You aren’t 
very fit. Join us. When it suits you. Either 
before the sight-seeing or after.” 

Ned felt the generosity of the proposal. 

“I should like to see Florence and Rome,” 
he muttered. “Thanks.” 

Grant rose, stretching himself, “Do we 
meet at Fir Bank to-night?” 

“It’s my night.” 

“Chess,” said Grant. An irony melancholy 
yet indulgent was in his tone. 

Like a priest in a burning city who thinks 


The Shot 259 

only of his church, Ned, as soon as he was 
alone, had but one question in his mind. Does 
this cut me off definitely from Emmy? He 
answered himself thus: 

No. If I can bring her to feel for me the 
half of what I feel for her the past is past and 
the future is ours. That’s clear, surely. 

Grant deserves her, in a way, more than I 
do. But is it likely a girl would ever love — 
love —a man she’s always regarded as an uncle? 
A girl who knows what love is, too. Pinney 
said it was impossible. Grant is a fine chap. 
Dictatorial though. Does a girl want that in 
her husband? I’m richer than he is. Could 
give her a fuller life. She’d never think of 
that, but it does make a difference. 

And Grant eating his usual plain dinner 
thinks to himself Jealous uncle. Hm . How 
the devil did Edward Demmean read my se¬ 
cret? 

For it had not long been clear to Grant him¬ 
self. Even now he was certain that he had 
looked cooly on Emmy’s marriage only because 
he was doubtful about Julian Demmean. The 
calamity, and what followed the calamity, had 
done it. Being all in all to her. Ned Dem- 


260 The Shot 

mean’s ejaculation comes suddenly back to 
him, “Poor angel! Poor darling!” 

No. Emmy isn’t an angel. Not the angel 
type. Her mother was that. This young 
man’s all right. Reliable and affectionate. It 
is far too early for Emmy to form a new at¬ 
tachment yet—(here, John Grant, you show 
less perspicacity than usual, for as a rule the 
woman agonized by a love-loss either dies or 
soon needs fresh love)—but when she does—I 
am forty. By that time shall be forty-one; 
perhaps forty-two. 

I’ll draw out my Emergency Fund at any 
rate and surround her with Paradise in Italy. 
Yes, I can have that pleasure. As for the rest, 
Che sara sara. 

And the self-trained stoic tries hard not to 
feel the thin little hand of his idol at his lips 
—and fails. 

A word here. Grant as well as Busshe had 
loved Emmy’s mother. The girl of seventeen 
chose of the two very young men the one who 
looked like a Greek sculptor’s dream of a demi¬ 
god. And was about as fit for matrimony as 
if he had been no more. Did she find out her 


The Shot 261 

mistake? Possibly. Anyhow, before she died 
she said to Grant, “You will look after Frank 
and his Eaglet for me.” He replied, “I will.” 

This explains much in Grant’s life that puz¬ 
zled outsiders. 


Chapter XIX 


T HE late evening is rainless, moonless, 
starless, almost airless. A river mist 
hides the feeble street lights. Smothered, like 
the secret drama which has its root in Julian 
Demmean’s death, lie the places we know, the 
scenes of the drama; Como, the long open- 
faced house with the cheerful windows and 
road-fronting flower borders; Rufus Lodge 
squarely withdrawn behind its trees; the perky 
little All Saints’ Studio villa snuggling up 
alongside of the new hotel and staring across 
at Dangerous Corner; All Saints’ Alley, whose 
bright trailing dying bowers and last smelly 
crops close in the cottage where Leah Swa- 
nell’s dead body lies; Fir Bank, old, old, bulgy, 
fantastic, shallow, in its strip off the Park—all 
these under the wavering mist-blanket are as 
if they were not. From one ten minutes to 
another the tram-lights, faintly visible, 
hasten by. 

Ned Demmean comes up to Fir Bank gate 

262 


The Shot 263 

just after Grant, who has his key in the door. 
They enter together. After a moment’s cogi¬ 
tation Grant leads the way to the drawing¬ 
room. 

The door stood open. A quiet picture was 
there. The faded, refined look of the room, 
the open piano with a song on the music-desk, 
the rich French screen, the Indian inlaid chess- 
table, red chrysanthemums reflected in the 
mantel-glass; and amid this old familiar still 
life, as still, sat Emmy on the sofa. Dr. Pinney 
was beside her, talking for two to his pet baby. 
He called all the people he had brought into the 
world his babies. So strong was the sugges¬ 
tion in the scene of settled safety and homely 
peace that as John Grant and Edward Dem- 
mean stood a moment to gaze, it made their 
griping anxieties appear like a bad dream. 

Emmy rose. 

“Dad’s poorly,” she said. “He didn’t sleep 
last night. And all day he’s had extraordinary 
sensations.” 

“It’s nothing,” Pinney assured them. “She 
came to fetch me. Got nervous without her 
aunt. I prescribed a mutton cutlet, sliced to¬ 
mato with cayenne and” (he looked at Grant) 


264 The Shot 

“a good glass of the port you sent up from your 
father’s cellars a while back. I know that 
port. Now the patient is digesting, instead 
of one of his patent messes, real food. What a 
feat!—eh ? I waited to keep the little girl com¬ 
pany till her friends came.” 

Pinney was in high spirits, A cranky female 
who, thinking he didn’t understand her, insisted 
on being escorted to a specialist had this morn¬ 
ing parted with ten guineas only to hear that 
Dr. Pinney was right on every point. Great fun 
for Pinney! Grant liked his cheerfulness. Ned 
could only gloomily wonder how, knowing 
what he now knew, he was to throw dust in the 
dear old chap’s shrewd eyes. By hook or by 
crook it must be done. 

Pinney was delighted too to see Grant and 
Ned Dimmean arrive at Fir Bank together; 
obviously on quite good terms. Ned was a 
sane man again then. At least as sane as a 
man in love can be. What if he had been mis¬ 
taken on the other point also? Grant enam¬ 
oured? Pinney found it almost as difficult to 
imagine him sighing for Emmy Busshe as 
shooting Julian Demmean. No, the doctor 


The Shot 265 

inclined just now to see a bright look-out all 
round. And he loved bright look-outs. 

He strolled to the open piano. The song on 
the desk was in manuscript. The music was 
Greek to Pinney. But he saw that the words 
were in Grant’s handwriting and felt curious. 
As he took the song up he noticed that there 
was silence in the room. Forthwith he began 
to spout: 

As the dark sky looks for dawn 
I look for you; 

As the hind follows her beauteous fawn 
I follow you. 

My holy places are 

Where’er your light feet bear you. 

Yea, if I were a star 
I’d fall to get near you. 

As a wave waits on the moon, 

I wait on you 

As a bee has joy in the July noon; 

So I in you- 

Here the doctor broke off. “Hullo, Jack 
Grant!” he called out—“are you reponsible 
for all this syrup?” 

He had been a young man coming about 
the house at Rufus Lodge when its present 


266 The Shot 

owner was a little boy; life had separated them, 
however; and with good will on both sides and 
surface familiarity they were not intimate. 

Grant was standing on the hearth-rug. His 
long, muscular form and firm features had at 
that moment something about them which cer¬ 
tainly contrasted oddly with the images in the 
song; something positive, uncompromising, un¬ 
assailable. He threw towards Pinney an iron¬ 
ical, one-sided smile. “No,” he said. “I came 
across the words in an old magazine. The 
jingle fitted with an air that was bothering my 
head, so I made the mixture and presented it 
to Emmy.” 

Grant did compose occasionally. Publish? 
Never. “At the same time, doctor,” he went 
on, “don’t you know that old bachelors and old 
maids are the most sentimental people on the 
face of the earth?” 

Pinney didn’t answer, he was going on read¬ 
ing—to himself; for Emmy and Ned had got 
into talk. It was Ned who began it. “I’ve 
never heard you sing or play,” he said to his 
cousin. 

“I’m not good,” she said, “Only splendidly 
taught.” 


267 


The Shot 

“Who taught you?” 

“Mr. Grant.” 

“Won’t you sing this song of his?” Ned ven¬ 
tured. 

She slightly shook her head. 

“Won’t you sing it?” Pinney addressed 
Grant. 

“I would if I had a voice,” he said. 

“Hasn’t he?” Pinney looked at Emmy. 

“No,” she said. “A divine croak.” 

“Ask him to divinely croak,” urged the doc¬ 
tor. 

“But I want to peep at dad,” she said; and 
with an abrupt movement, charming in its 
gaucherie, was gone. 

“Is he in bed?” Grant enquired of Pinney; 
who nodded. Ned went close up to Grant. 
“Wouldn’t it be a good thing to get Pinney 
on your side about Italy?” he said in a low 
voice. 

The idea of his requiring assistance rather 
amused Grant. “We’ll move Frank all right,” 
he said indulgently. 

Pinney took out his pipe. “Must trot.” 

There were no electric fittings at Fir Bank. 
The old-fashioned hall-door bell rang vio- 


268 The Shot 

lently. Grant turned round sharp. He was 
reminded of Maurice Ransom's ring when the 
young man rushed round from Como to Rufus 
Lodge on the morning of the fifteenth of 
April. And it was Maurice who the next min¬ 
ute entered the room. Again did his aspect 
announce disaster. He was less agitated, more 
active, than on the other occasion; but Grant 
and Ned Demmean took from his appearance 
a shock so severe they were prepared, when he 
spoke, to hear the worst. 

Maurice hesitated for a second with his eyes 
doubtfully on Pinney. “We are all friends 
here, Ransom," said Grant. 

Maurice evidently scarcely knew whether to 
address Miss Busshe’s cousin or her titular 
uncle. His head kept turning from right to 
left as he said, “I hoped to find one of you 
here, if not both. How could I have spoken 
to Mr. Busshe? The first time Gay wood ex¬ 
amined the contents of the bundle he got no 
clue. But he has tried again and found a 
pocket in the wadding of the petticoat. There 
was a handkerchief in it stained with blood and 
marked in full with Miss Busshe’s name. Don’t 
ask how I know. Some one in humble life 


The Shot 269 

who Miss Busshe was once very kind to came 
and told me, hoping to save her. Unless,” 
here he fixed his jumpy glance on Grant, ‘'un¬ 
less the handkerchief can be explained away 
there’s not a moment to lose.” 

Maurice had already read in the face, so 
well known to him, of Ned Demmean the fact 
that it was Miss Busshe who had done the 
deed. Grant was impenetrable. "Your car, 
Captain Demmean, can be round in five min¬ 
utes,” Maurice went on, gesticulating as he 
never did in ordinary life—he had cured him¬ 
self of the tendency. Coral thought it common. 
"Bury her in London for a week or so; then 
make for one of the obscure sea-ports. Miss 
Busshe is in, I trust.” 

What? Emmy? Emmy Busshe! What’s 
this tomfoolery?” The words were from Pin- 
ney. He was close to Grant who, touching 
the back of his hand, gave him a look terrible 
in its decisiveness. Pinney staggered—stepped 
back into a chair. He felt at that moment 
what he seldom felt. Old. 

The door opened and Emmy appeared at it 
with the lovely smile of a satisfied mother. 
"He’s off like a baby,” she cried. 


270 The Shot 

The four men faced her, or rather, failed to 
face her as if it were they who were guilty. She 
noticed Ransom’s presence, which she hadn’t 
done at first; simultaneously something in the 
very air seemed to strike home and tell her of 
the errand he came on. 

“The parcel is found,” she said quickly. 
“The handkerchief is in it.” 

It was Ransom who answered. “Yes, Miss 
Busshe. And-” 

She stopped him, holding up a hand. She 
looked straight at Grant. “The end!” she 
said. She turned to Ned. “I’m glad you 
know.” 

What he had feared seemed to be happen¬ 
ing. She spoke to him as if she was a ghost. 
“Emmy! Emmy!” He got out her name. 
Then could go on. “It was a fatality.” He 
made an unsuccessful attempt to seize her 
hand. “You are my first thought.” He began 
passionately urging her to escape. Ransom 
seconded him. “No,” she said, “I kept the se¬ 
cret for my father’s sake. He must know now. 
So let it all come!” 

Grant stood quiescent; it seemed strange. 



The Shot 271 

The door-bell rang again. “That’s Gay- 
wood,” he said. 

Ruth, the housemaid, showed her puzzled 
face. “Mr. Gaywood asks to see Miss Busshe,” 
she said. 

Grant looked at Emmy for the first time. 
“My child, I ask you to go to your room for a 
quarter of an hour.” He addressed her as 
child and like a child she went. 

“Where is Mr. Gaywood?” 

“I showed him in the dining-room, sir.” 

Grant nodded. “I must see him alone,” he 
said, with a glance over his shoulder at the 
three other men; and left the room. 

He was allowed to take everything on him¬ 
self. Only Edward Demmean could have had 
any right to interfere. And Ned was crushed 
to the earth. He had dragged the parcel into 
the light of day; he had forwarded it to the 
police. “I’m the founder of the feast.” These 
were the words which ridiculously enough sang 
in his head. When Grant had left the room 
he spoke aloud. “I’m the founder of the feast,” 
he almost shouted. A short laugh rattled in 
his throat. 

Pinney jumped up. He was himself again 


272 The Shot 

and very sorry for Ned. “It was a fatality ,’ 9 
he said; giving the young man back his own 
words. He got Ned by the arm, forced him 
to sit down and sat by him, and Ned found 
a certain relief in answering his questions; 
meanwhile Maurice took himself off. 

He liked Emmy Busshe, but it was not for 
her sake alone that he came to Fir Bank. To 
keep the secret of his wife’s abortive connec¬ 
tion with Julian Demmean was a fixed idea 
with him. When he heard that Miss Busshe 
was suspected of murder he said to himself, 
“If the poor girl is guilty; if she is arrested, im¬ 
prisoned, tried—all must come out.” Hence 
his exceeding anxiety. 

Helpless now, he disconsolately returned 
home through the mist. Looked for Coral. 
Went to Hilda, the maid, who told him Mrs. 
Hansom had gone out. He was uneasy. Did 
Hilda know where her mistress had gone? 
“No, Mrs. Hansom only said she might be 
late for supper.” 

The truth was Maurice had passed his wife 
between Fir Bank and their own house. But 
it was no night for recognitions; and though 
she, with her woman’s sixth sense knew him. 


The Shot 273 

she had had for Maurice no more identity 
than outline. A moving blot. 

Why was Grant determined to see Gay- 
wood alone? 

Well, often as he had considered the pos¬ 
sibility of this moment’s coming he found him¬ 
self, when it came, hit too hard to think clearly; 
yet he couldn’t at once accept as a fact the 
hopelessness of the situation. What he felt 
was— Can't she be saved?—hut I must shut 
off Edward Demmean; his face is a placard. 

Gaywood and Grant were well acquainted. 
But in public rather than private. And when 
Grant went into the dining-room at Fir Bank 
where the Kaye detective-inspector sat wait¬ 
ing he took with him his public official face. 
A stern shut-up phiz it was. 

Gaywood is a middle-sized man just under 
or just over forty, a little too stout and begin¬ 
ning to be bald; a reddish face; the heavy jaws 
are balanced by a good forehead; the turned 
up nose is large but not coarse; the mouth is 
stubborn; the small grey eyes move slowly. 

For the rest he is not a wonder either of 
talent or stupidity; has his bright moments and 
his dull moments; a conceited, obstinate per- 


274 The Shot 

son; kind-hearted. He is a widower with two 
children. 

Grant is not popular with his brother mag¬ 
istrates ; but Gay wood has an immense respect 
for him. He thinks that Mr. Grant’s abilities 
compare less unfavourably with his own than 
is the case with most people. 

Favoured by the misty night, the Kaye de¬ 
tective-inspector has very unostentatiously 
taken measures which render it impossible for 
anyone to leave Fir Bank unobserved. And 
he knows Miss Busshe to be at home. He 
is in no hurry. 

Formally the two men greet each other. 
Gaywood begins saying what he has to say. 
Suddenly, at a glance as it were, Grant sees 
how, from a lawyer’s point of view, the case 
might be fought by Emmy’s friends. He 
knows that Rose Swanell does fine wasliing 
occasionally for Fir Bank. Her crazy old 
mother might well have stolen the handker¬ 
chief and given it to her gipsy pal, the man 
unknown who going to Como to rob had been 
alarmed into murder. Or- 

Fool! What do these brain-wanderings 
signify? Emmy will plead guilty. Plead? 



The Shot 275 

No. She will never live to be tried. The 
bruised reed will break. 

A sound in unconscious unison with which 
he has had these thoughts ceases and they 
cease with it. The subdued tones of Gay- 
wood’s naturally sonorous voice have been in 
Grant’s ears—for how long? That he could 
not tell you; his brain was working too busily; 
nor has he taken in a single word. 

Aghast at the discovery in himself of such 
an unwonted lapse he fixes on Gay wood a 
glance which is searching and severe. The 
severity is really aimed at his own wool-gath¬ 
ering ; the searchingness expresses a desperate 
effort to guess what Gaywood has been saying. 

For the third time the old hall-door bell 
rings loud. The jangle has a new character. 
It is jerkier and more imperious. Ten to one 
the person now at the door is a woman. 

Grant and Gaywood both turn round, for¬ 
getting each other, instinctively waiting to 
learn what this signal portends. Grant does 
more than wait. He opens the dining-room 
door and goes into the hall where he finds 
Ruth just admitting Coral Ransom. Behind 


276 The Shot 

her steps with an authoritative air the Rev. 
Ludovic Sim. 

In the little hall Coral was right upon Grant 
almost as soon as he showed himself. Ruth 
had vanished. Coral said at once in a half¬ 
whisper, “Don’t be surprised, Mr. Grant. I 
had to come. I know why Mr. Gaywood is 
here.” Her eyes had travelled past Grant to 
the inspector, who was standing in the dining¬ 
room doorway. 

Gaywood knew Mrs. Ransom by sight. 
Only by sight. Yet in a manner well—vastly 
well. His admiration for her was both dis¬ 
criminating and enthusiastic. Needless to say, 
he kept it to himself. 

Quite startled by the unlooked for appear¬ 
ance at this moment of the figure which em¬ 
bodied the highest idea he could form of 
woman, he was staring at her in involuntary 
absorption when her words roused his business 
sense. 

He came forward. “You know why I am 
here, Mrs. Ransom?” he said deferentially but 
decidedly. “May I ask how you know?” 

“You will hear that, with the rest, in its 
proper place,” she replied; composed; perhaps 


The Shot 277 

a trifle proud. But she didn’t omit to give 
Gay wood a quick glance which said—Your 
personality interests me. He felt it and was 
inly charmed. 

Coral looked at Grant. “I have an im¬ 
portant statement to make,” she said. 

“Indeed!” said Grant. 

Something about her suggested to him the 
idea that her disclosure, whatever it might be, 
would favour Emmy. 

“Indeed!” he repeated in a far less dry tone. 

“Mr. Sim, coming to see Mr. Busshe, got 
to the door with me. I asked him to help. 
He can corroborate me on one point.” 

“A priest must go where he’s wanted,” said 
Sim with his chin in the air, “But if I’m not 
wanted, Mr. Grant—” 

Grant held out his hand. There was a sim¬ 
plicity in the movement which, coming from 
him, rather touched the vicar of All Saints’. 
His grip was hearty. 

Where the stairs terminated Grant leaned 
against the wall with the extreme end of the 
forefinger of his left hand as if viciously 
trapped between his teeth. Coral saw that for 
once he was uncertain what to do next. She 
moved to his side. “Upstairs!” she whispered. 


Chapter XX 


O NE glance into Coral Ransom’s mind. 

From her bedroom, where she was fresh¬ 
ening herself up for supper, she had heard 
Maurice let some one out of the house. The 
next moment he was with her, strugglingly 
exchanging his striped studio-coat for a black 
one. “What is it?” she said. “The Como case 
—Mr. Demmean—deadly evidence turned up 
against Miss Busshe—I am off to Fir Bank.” 
He was gone. 

If I go—if I speak—I lose Lady Alicia. 
That this should be Coral’s first thought 
may make you smile. But she had craved to 
rise, slaved to rise; her foot was on a low rung 
of the long, long ladder and Lady Alicia could 
(obviously soon would) with one touch float 
her up as high as she wanted to go. And cer¬ 
tain it was that the woman who had meant to 
run away with Julian Demmean must cease 
to exist for Lady Alicia Lamely. Intellectu- 
278 


The Shot 279 

ally progressive, she was morally nothing if 
not stationary. 

“I am on the Committees of two Societies 
for helping the fallen but I reserve my per¬ 
sonal friendship for women I believe to be 
virtuous.” Coral had heard her say that. 

If I go—if I speak—I lose Lady Alicia. 

Another thing. She couldn’t confess that 
it was only Julian Demmean’s position had 
attracted her. Lawless love would be forgiven 
her by people less strict than Lady Alicia; 
cool scheming in such a connection seemed 
monstrous. Plainly she saw that. She would 
have to pose as what she was not—the victim 
of passion. 

With what bitter eyes, standing motionless, 
she stared through her front bedroom window 
at the corner-wall of the Como garden! 

She made a sudden movement, indicative of 
resolution. 

I must go—I must speak—I must lose 
Lady Alicia. 

So here she was in the Fir Bank drawing¬ 
room, where she had never been before; Bene- 
dicta Watkyn, always civil now to Mrs. Ran¬ 
som in public, not having got beyond that, 


280 The Shot 

It must be remembered that Coral thought 
the fact of her having had an affair with Julian 
Demmean would come as a thunderclap to all 
the persons interested. Whereas Ned Dem¬ 
mean and Maurice Ransom knew all about it 
already. And did Coral shrink specially from 
the necessity she believed herself to be under 
of enlightening her husband—probably no 
later than this same night? Not she. No 
feature of the business occupied her less. She 
felt certain Maurice wouldn’t give her a great 
deal of trouble. 

Almost as they entered the drawing-room 
Gaywood said to her in a low voice, “Am I 
to understand, Mrs. Ransom, that you wish 
to make a statement in public?” 

“If you call this public,” she said, con¬ 
tentedly taking in the presence of Captain 
Demmean and Dr. Pinney—“yes.” She 
spoke clearly, emphatically, as if wanting 
everybody to hear her. “I don’t see anyone in 
this room who hasn’t a near interest in what I 
have to say.” 

The impromptu session took on a sort of 
form. Thus: 

Miss Watkyn being away, no one minded 


The Shot 281 

draughts, and the screen was placed not as 
usual across the room, half dividing it, but on 
the same side of the room as the door, almost 
against the wall. Coral, with her unfailing 
eye for effect, seated herself with the screen 
for background; she had a dark antique-look¬ 
ing chair, unupholstered; beside it there hap¬ 
pened to be a high painted stool; she took off 
her black hat and black huge neck-fur and laid 
them on the stool. The lustre of her hair and 
of the white neck above her black dress some¬ 
how gave this little action singular importance. 

The men sat facing Coral in a scattered 
half-circle. Grant and Gay wood to one side; 
Ned Demmean and Pinney to the other. Sim’s 
chair was farther back; he was almost behind 
Ned. Before they sat down Coral had found 
an instant in which to whisper to Grant, 
‘‘Should Mr. Busshe be sent for?” Grant 
replied, “He’s laid up.” He was debating 
with himself now whether or not to fetch 
Emmy. 

The question was settled for him. The door 
opened quickly and she came in. Perfectly 
collected. 

The men rose. Emmy looked very young 


282 The Shot 

and thin; the eyes too bright; the passionate 
mouth strongly set. Now you might see that 
Miss Watkyn wasn’t talking rubbish when she 
said, as she often did, she was thankful Emmy 
had good blood on both sides, being a Watkyn 
and a Busshe. The girl appeared to remem¬ 
ber only that in her aunt’s absence she was 
mistress of the house. Moving from one point 
to another of the group, she shook hands first 
with Coral Ransom then with Mr. Sim and 
bowed to Gaywood, who was a complete 
stranger to her. All was so simply done! 

She sat down near Grant; not very near. 

Gaywood had been duly laconic and unde¬ 
monstrative when addressing Mrs. Ransom. 
Nevertheless Coral somehow got at his feeling 
about her. And what a help it is to a woman 
on a critical occasion to have a thorough-going 
admirer present! Gaywood, being only a 
police officer, mightn’t under other circum¬ 
stances have counted for much; as things were 
he did count—considerably. Coral was quite 
eased and cheered by his smothered apprecia¬ 
tion of her perfections. She began to get 
excited. 

She looked on the irregular half-ring of 


The Shot 283 

men; the young artillery officer with his bluntly 
modelled yet sensitive face, dark-tanned; the 
short, burly large-browed ecclesiastic, pope to 
many a soul in and around Daunt; John 
Grant, of whom she had several times thought, 
That man is a man, I think I’d have chosen 
him for myself if women could choose; Pin- 
ney, the neighbourhood’s big medical light; 
Gay wood, representing Justice—terrible blind 
Justice; she looked on all these and they 
seemed (as an orchestra to a conductor) hers 
to move as she would; no matter for anything 
else; her personality asserted itself with reck¬ 
less might; she must live these few minutes 
gloriously; she saw her role complete and it 
swallowed her up. 

Leaning slightly forward in her chair after 
the break caused by Emmy’s entrance, she 
said, “I expect to be believed.” The voice was 
rich; there was melancholy in its tones and 
there was force. “Because in order to make 

the truth known I sacrifice-” she was going 

to say—my reputation—but stopped, thinking 
that clap-trappy; after the effective pause— 
“I make a big sacrifice,” she said. 

She straightened herself up and for one 



284 The Shot 

minute sat like a statue except that the filmy 
black corsage heaved visibly. 

“All the circumstances connected with Mr. 
Demmean’s death are not known,” she said 
slowly. “There was one which I am now 
bound to speak of. I never saw him till a 
month and a day before the day of his death. 
When we did meet he fell in love with me.” 

A brief, oppressed interval. She seemed to 
be recovering from her effort. 

A flash of comprehension passed across 
Grant’s silent visage; Sim gave a jerk in his 
chair; Gay wood stared, violently interested; 
Pinney folded his arms, retaining the judicial 
consultant’s look with which he had set him¬ 
self to listen. In Emmy’s white face the two 
red spots appeared which came now with in¬ 
ward stress. Ned Demmean waited for Coral 
to go on. And she went on. “I felt so safe, 
I didn’t regard the matter seriously enough. 
Well! I am not here to tell my own story. 
On the night of the fourteenth of April last. 
Dr. and Mrs. Pinney of Elm Lodge, Daunt, 
gave a little dinner party and my husband and 
I went up there in the evening to help with 
some burlesque cinema acting. I gave way on 


The Shot 285 

that evening; consented to go away with Mr, 
Demmean. He said he saw in me his predes¬ 
tined wife. He insisted on taking the step at 
once. I think I see now why. I begged for a 
few days’ grace. He asked me to come up 
to Como the next day, in the morning, to 
settle details. He expected to he alone. I 
went. I had only been at Como once before 
with my husband. 

“Mr. Demmean had given me a key which 
opens the gate from the end of Argyle Avenue 
into the lambing fields and the door from the 
lambing fields into the Como garden. I walked 
up the garden; he was in the study, as he ap¬ 
pointed to be, with the French window open. 
He told me a person had just been with him 
from the Orphan Girls’ Home at Kaye, beg¬ 
ging. He wouldn’t have had her in; but at 
the moment when her card was handed to him 
he was so deep in thinking out our plans he 
said, ‘Show her in,’ automatically. Suddenly 
we saw the person he was speaking of coming 
up the garden. I was terrified of being seen. 
I don’t know why. A bad conscience, I sup¬ 
pose. Mr. Demmean was furious. He cursed 
and cursed her impudence. I saw for the first 


286 The Shot 

time a woman’s handkerchief on the floor and 
said, ‘She’s come back for her handkerchief.’ 
Mr. Demmean opened a door, concealed in the 
wall where the bookshelves are; I didn’t know 
it was there; he hurried me up the staircase 
to—to his room. We were there a few min¬ 
utes.” 

Coral fetched a deep breath. Studied?— 
or was she thinking of the mad caresses Julian 
Demmean had heaped on her in the little room? 
He had almost frightened her, she had felt 
for a moment as if he were getting out of 
hand. How perceptible her heavy sigh was in 
the stillness! Not one of the persons listening 
to her stirred a finger, they were too pro¬ 
foundly taken up. 

She put a hand to her head; dropped the 
hand; the voice raised itself again. 

“I made him go down. After that the time 
seemed to me long; longer than it really was. 
I got impatient. I went down the stairs. Mr. 
Demmean hadn’t quite closed the door into 
the study. I thought I heard a voice I knew 
—Miss Busshe’s. I pushed the door the least 
bit more open and peeped. 

Mr. Demmean and the elderly person we had 


The Shot 287 

seen in the garden were standing opposite to 
each other and she was speaking in Miss 
Eusshe’s voice. As I looked she stopped 
speaking. Mr. Demmean smiled. It seemed 
to me a meaningless smile. She caught up 
his revolver which was lying on the secre¬ 
taire. I knew Miss Easshe to be a splendid 

markswoman. She took aim and then-Her 

hand flew up as if something gave it a knock, 
the bullet went high and passed through the 
eyes of the portrait of the Duke of Wellington 
hanging on the wall behind where Mr. Dem¬ 
mean stood.” 

Emmy’s hands which had been tightly 
clenched in her lap now covered her face. That 
was all. She didn’t utter a sound. 

“She fell down fainting,” said Coral, raising 
her head and speaking with a solemn sort of 
energy, “and Mr. Demmean picked up the 
revolver she had dropped, said aloud, T knew 
all the time I should end like this,’ and shot 
himself—shot himself. It was all over in one 
instant. I was mad with the horror of it, 
I think; I fancied I heard people coming 
in by the front door, my husband and others. 
I offer no excuse for myself, my one idea was 


288 The Shot 

to get away without being found out. I ran 
up to the little room again, the window was 
open, I got down, using the magnolia as a 
ladder,” (here Gaywood’s figure lunged for¬ 
ward in his chair, his fists heavily struck his 
knees) “I skirted the garden by a side-path, 
I had the key on me, I let myself out into the 
lambing fields. As I left them at Argyle Ave¬ 
nue Corner I saw Mr. Sim. He said ‘Good- 
morning’ and advised me to make haste home, 
a storm was due.” 

Here a physiological trick played itself off 
on Coral. The terrible sensation she had had 
when she saw Julian Demmean fall, recurred; 
it mastered her and suddenly the proud self- 
possessed woman seemed to turn into an ago¬ 
nized child. 

“Oh, it was so awful! Oh, it was so awful!” 
she exclaimed in a loud, helpless voice. And 
began to cry, not gracefully as Coral usually 
cried; this was a genuine, piteous, but far from 
graceful blubbering. Deeply vexed would she 
have been if she could have foreseen the 
weakness. 

Emmy’s hands came down from her face. 
She crossed the room with a young girl’s 


The Shot 289 

indescribable flying motion; it was strange to 
see her take Coral’s hat and fur off the stool; 
such a little everyday thing; she sat down 
on the stool and threw her arms round Coral’s 
neck. “You are good, you are good,” she 
whispered in her ear. 

The men. Sim, a highly emotional person, 
swore. Pinney blew his nose. Ned Demmean 
leaned forward, every bit of him tense. Gay- 
wood’s teeth met and his lips went away from 
them. Only Grant showed nothing. 

Coral quieted down. It cannot be said that 
up to now she had ever considered Emmy 
Busshe except as a factor in a state of things 
which mattered very much to Coral herself. 
But something about the girl impressed her 
now. Perhaps it was Emmy’s piercing sin¬ 
cerity. “Well, Miss Busshe,” she said, as she 
mopped up her face, “if you forgive me I 
don’t care whether the public does or not.” 

She glanced at her male audience. They 
were more hers than before she had cried in 
that stupid, disfiguring way. She saw it and 
took heart. “I suppose I ought to have spoken 
at the time,” she said meekly. “But for Miss 
Busshe’s sake as well as my own it seemed best 


290 The Shot 

not. The coroner’s jury’s verdict was right. 
It was suicide, So I argued why not leave it 
at that? It never struck me Miss Busshe 
would think it was her shot that had taken 
effect. I did do one thing. When I was ill 
with influenza I wrote to Mr. Sim enclosing 
a sealed letter which I asked him to keep and 
in case of my death at any time to read it and 
forward to Captain Demmean or Mr. Grant. 
In that letter is the whole truth just as I have 
told it.” 

“I have the sealed letter,” trumpeted Sim, 
“And I remember meeting Mrs. Ransom on 
the morning of the fifteenth of April last at 
Argyle Corner. I thought she looked very ill.” 

It was Pinney’s turn. With flushed face 
and swinging eyeglasses he was heard to say, 
“I speak as Miss Busshe’s doctor. Her nerves 
are kittle cattle . The inhibitory movement of 
the real self followed almost immediately on 
a nerve paroxysm. I hold that there was 
never anything it would be correct to call mur¬ 
derous intention.” 

Emmy was still sitting on the high painted 
stool beside Coral Ransom. But she hardly 
seemed to be attending to what was going on. 


The Shot 291 

When Pinney stopped speaking, however, she 
quickly raised her head. “Wrong, doctor 
dear,” she said in a low but penetrating voice. 
“For one moment I meant—meant to kill him. 
When I came to myself in his study my first 
thought was, ‘Oh Heaven, I meant to kill him. 
But I can’t have done it. No, no, he’s not 
dead.’ He was dead and if I’d had a thousand 
lives all packed with splendid things I’d rather 
have given them for his life. Couldn’t be done. 
See, doctor dear?” She pulled at the loose 
belt of her dress, a trick she had sometimes; 

as if helping herself forward. “I-” she 

began; then something seemed to give her a 
check; almost before anyone knew she had 
moved she was out of the room. 

“I hold to my opinion,” said Pinney. 

“It was always mine,” said Grant. 

There was a minute’s silence. Coral was 
trying to think if she had left anything out, 
“The second pistol,” she said. “I forgot to say 
the very first thing Mr. Demmean told me 
when we met was that he’d had poor luck in a 
shooting match with Mr. Grant. Never shot 
so badly. He’d chosen out another of his 
pistols and wanted his revenge before evening. 



292 The Shot 

It would fill up the time—the interminable 
time. I said he was no match for Mr a Grant. 
I never flattered him. I can’t say I saw the 
other pistol, still that must have been the sec¬ 
ond one found in the study.” 

General assent. 

Ned Demmean now stood up. “Mrs. Ran¬ 
som has behaved bravely,” he said. “She 
spoke of the harm her confession would do her. 
Is there any reason why anything that has 
been said this evening in this room should 
be repeated out-of-doors? We are gentlemen, 
I hope.” 

“I agree with Captain Demmean,” answered 
Gaywood as he too got on his legs. “There is of 
course no material for a fresh case. As Mrs. 
Ransom has truly remarked, the coroner’s jury 
were correct in their finding. May I com¬ 
pliment Mrs. Ransom on the very game and 
masterly way in which she has made her state¬ 
ment. And—one observation. I alone main¬ 
tained at the time that whatever doubts might 
arise as to the other features of the tragedy, 
the magnolia had been descended by some one 
escaping through the window of the little room 


The Shot 293 

above Mr. Demmean’s study. I was not 
mistaken.” 

His chest swelled partly with self-satisfac¬ 
tion, partly because Coral smiled faintly, 
scarcely at Gaywood but towards him. 

“You asked me how I knew why you came 
to Fir Bank this evening,” she said. “Simply 
—from my husband.” 

Gaywood saw at once what had happened. 
He had got the middle-aged widow who looked 
after his house and children to help him in 
his second examination of the bundle. A wo¬ 
man, he thought, would know about a woman’s 
clothes. It was she who found the concealed 
pocket. She had good reason to love Emily 
Hegel Busshe. As she knew it was Maurice 
Hansom who brought the bundle, to him in her 
distress she went. Yes; although Gaywood 
had bound her over to be dumb. 

Somehow the Inspector didn’t care to say he 
had been assisted by his housekeeper. What 
did it signify? In reply to Mrs. Ransom he 
merely bowed in silence. 

Coral had a black satin bag hardly bigger 
than a purse attached to her waist. Her hand 


294 The Shot 

went into this bag. She took a good-sized key 
out of it and said, looking at Grant, “Here 
is the key.” 

Grant went and took the key from her and 
handed it to Edward Demmean. 


Chapter XXI 


FORTNIGHT later, at a little past ten 



jljL p. m., Grant, sitting alone over a dying 
fire in the Fir Bank drawing-room, is taking 
himself to task. 

An unpleasant occupation; nor does he look 
pleasant. 

It has been a chess evening but he and Frank 
Busshe have played alone. Aunt Benny has 
conducted Emmy to one of those functions in 
connection with Mr. Sim’s church which alone 
have power to call her forth after dinner. And 
knowing Emmy would be absent Ned Dem- 
mean didn’t appear. 

The Italian scheme is shelved. Emmy is 
learning to drive her cousin’s car. The daily 
run has set her up. 

Grant thinks—She is safe. Will eventually 
be happy. Is it possible, now the nightmare is 
over, that I ask for more than this? 

His secret man by way of answer can only 
groan. 


295 


296 The Shot 

Francis Busshe has gone up to bed. Why; 
doesn’t Grant leave? 

Listen! A voice and a laugh at the hall- 
door. Emmy’s laugh. Ned Demmean’s voice. 
Then—good night; good night. 

Here come Aunt Benny and Emmy up the 
old-fashioned winding stair. The drawing¬ 
room door opens. Miss Watkyn, happy to feel 
that though other people may have grown lax 
about mourning, she is all black for her last 
aunt, shows herself. “Good night, Mr. Grant. 
I’m dead tired. Such an interesting evening.” 

Something like a spirit flashes by and the 
aunt calls out—“Aren’t you going to wish Mr. 
Grant good night?” 

No reply is vouchsafed; but Benny says ami¬ 
ably, “Emmy wishes you good night, Mr. 
Grant-” and goes up. 

Grant had risen to salute Miss Watkyn. In¬ 
stead of taking himself off, however, he lin¬ 
gered. He walked about the room. Finally 
sat down again. Miss Watkyn had left the 
door aj ar. Suddenly it was pushed and Emmy 
dashed in. 

Obviously she had begun to undress and 
then decided to come down. Her feet were 



The Shot 297 

in loose bedroom slippers. Hair bustled up 
with two hairpins. Refastened in haste, her 
little old cream-coloured dress gaped in one 
place and bulged in another. By the by, Miss 
Watkyn had had to sell her niece’s trousseau 
frocks at a huge loss and the girl paid for her 
determination never to wear them by going 
shabby. 

Well, she stood a moment contemplating 
Grant’s long figure stretched out in her 
father’s armchair by the chess-table; his face 
hard-looking yet exhausted-looking, too. He 
glanced round. “It’s late,” he remarked. 

“Frightfully late,” she said scornfully—“for 
Fir Bank.” 

“What have you come down for?” he uncere¬ 
moniously inquired. 

The shut-up box with the men in it was on 
the chess-table. Emmy took the lid off and 
crashed the box down on the table; it was 
emptied with such force that a number of 
pieces went on the floor. 

“I came to put the chess away,” she said 
calmly. But she didn’t start on the work she 
had created for herself. Grant smiled very 
slightly. Emmy seated herself on the high 


298 The Shot 

painted stool which was at the opposite side of 
the fire to Grant’s chair. 

“The fire’s out. You’ll get cold in that thin 
dress,” he said in a fatherly tone. She took no 
notice. Her face was burning. Her hands 
were burning. 

‘T’m glad God exists, anyhow,” she said. 

"Why do you say that?” 

"Because I can thank Him for all you were 
to me in—in the time of my tribulation. I 
can’t thank you . Ice statue!” 

Grant sat up. "What nonsense this is! Don’t 
you see that I made a mistake?” 

"What mistake?” 

"If at the time I had let you do as you wished 
—as your right instinct prompted you—Mau¬ 
rice Hansom’s wife would have come forward 
then and spared you six months of torture.” 

"I don’t wish I hadn’t had that torture.” 
said Emmy proudly. "I deserved it.” One 
of her feet in a white silk stocking came out of 
its slipper. "Besides; but for that-” 

She broke off, looking across at him as if 
fiercely. 

He said nothing. 



The Shot 299 

“I’d never have known the depths of you 
but for that,” she said. 

Grant glanced at the little travelling clock 
on the chimney-piece. 

“That clock’s stopped,” Emmy informed 
him. “Where’s your watch?” 

“Wants a new glass.” 

“No, those wonderful depths!” she went on 
musingly. “I have them to remember, at any 
rate. You’re wooden enough now; yes; but 


“Wood, my child? I was ice just now.” 

“Sneer away!” 

“What’s the matter with you, Eaglet?” 

At the sound of the name her bosom gave a 
heave. 

She came and kneeled in front of the dead 
fire. Her eyes flashed round. “Why did you 
kiss my hand that morning?” she inquired. 

Grant’s face flushed up. 

“Why?” he said; confounded. 

“Yes; why?” 

“Why?” 

“Why? Why?” 

Sorely put to it was the imperturbable 
Grant. “Why?” he said at last. “Why not?” 



300 The Shot 

“Why not?—Do you say that?—Then, why 
not?” 

She seized one of his hands, held it, covered 
it with kisses, dropped it, murmured with ex¬ 
traordinary rapidity while her own hands met 
under her chin in order to keep them from 
trembling—“You think in a year or two I shall 
marry Edward Demmean. I’ll never marry. 
Never. All that’s past and gone. Nor you 
either—never marry—will you? We’ll be al¬ 
ways as we are now, see each other every day, 
tell everything, live on top of our depths as 
much as you like but go down into them to¬ 
gether when there’s reason; we’ll be kind to 
everybody and care about each other so inex¬ 
pressibly it’ll make us laugh—the mere thought 
of it—when we’re apart; such, such friends 
we’ll be. Let’s leave Daunt, Jack—I shan’t 
call you Uncle any more—see?—I want to 
live in the country. Jack; I love the country; 
especially where there are great green hedges; 
don’t you?” 

“Eaglet, will you marry me? Not in a year 
or two; but now.” 

She started back. 

“I am close on forty-one,” he said roughly, 


The Shot 301 

* I n ten years you will be only twenty-nine, 
while I-” 

“Arithmetic!” she cried; almost shrieked. 

She sprang into his arms. 

They did go into the country. One of the 
farming counties near the sea. Grant said un¬ 
mixed happiness was a ludicrous thing; he 
must have something to be up against; so he 
bought a farm, 

Ned Demmean suffered a good deal; but one 
day he met at a house where he was staying a 
girl with hair like Emmy’s; while he was look¬ 
ing at her, trying to find a resemblance in the 
profile too she turned, their eyes jnet, she 
changed colour. The marriage is all right. 

It is to be presumed that the Ransoms set¬ 
tled their little differences successfully; for ten 
months after the date of Coral’s private-public 
confession in the Fir Bank drawing-room she 
had a lovely little girl. Lady Alicia Lamely 
is godmother to the infant, which is called 
Alicia, of course. 

And Rose? She had been proud of her se¬ 
cret love for Grant as long as he was single. 
But when he married Emmy, Rose being a 



302 The Shot 

specially good sailor took a post as stewardess 
on one of the great Atlantic liners. Like that 
she cured herself in a year and now John Grant 
the first seems a dream compared to John 
Grant the second whose nurse she is. He is a 
bottle baby and his mother declines to have 
anything to do with bottles; so young J ohn is 
really more Rose’s than Emmy’s at present. 

See her sitting in the night-nursery window, 
getting him off; she rocks slightly, singing low; 
below, on the gravel walk before the house, 
paces Emmy; it is July; hay-harvest over; 
Emmy is restless ; she has still sometimes what 
she calls shadow days; days when the dark 
thing in her past barges into the present; and 
then she can scarcely bear her husband out of 
her sight. To-day he has had to be away five 
hours. Just as she has begun picturing a fatal 
accident with the car on the way home, he 
comes round the corner of the house. They 
meet and walk hand in hand. 

“Listen to Rose,” she says. “J never knew; 
she could sing.” 

“Browne is very keen,” says Grant; Browne 
being his right-hand man. “Has he any 
chance?” 


The Shot 303 

“Oh, I’ll make her when baby’s older,” says 
Emmy. “Let’s go down and meet dad and 
Benny, they’re dining with us.” 

They descend the beautiful careless old drive 
twisting down to the village between trees of 
many kinds which seem to have grown up there 
at random; like thoughts in a dreaming mind. 

Suddenly Grant catches Emmy up; she is 
high in his arms; “Is Eaglet better?” he says, 
and kisses her eyes. She smiles, quite red. “Oh 
yes; well,” she replied; then hastily—“Put me 
down. They’re at the fork; I see Benny’s 
skirt, and she does think married love-making 
such tosh!” 

“Does Benny?” says Grant, a good deal 
amused. He sets Emmy down with her feet 
on the mossy path, her head under tree- 
branches. “How sweet the lime-blossom 
smells!” she says. 

Yes; how sweet, how sweet on a summer eve¬ 
ning the lime-blossom smells of summer. 


THE END. 

























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